


Whumptober 2020

by himynameisv



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AUs, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Loki (Marvel), I'm sorry Loki, Partial Mind Control, Suicide, Torture, Whumptober 2020, anything else associated with whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 37,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27012982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himynameisv/pseuds/himynameisv
Summary: 31 chapters centering around our favorite trickster god. Based on the Whumptober prompts on Tumblr.Originally posted on fanfiction.net.
Relationships: Loki & Avengers Team, Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 190
Collections: Whumptober, Whumptober 2020





	1. Let's Hang Out Sometime

**Author's Note:**

> I'm busy transferring this fic from ff.net to here. So, um...hopefully I'll get to today's prompt by the end of today. If you don't want to wait, click [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13709527/1/Whumptober-2020) for the ff.net version.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> I'm actually doing Whumptober this yr? I'm - I'm actually so proud of myself? Unfortunately, I don't have a Tumblr, so I suppose this is just gonna stay here...
> 
> So, quarantine has made me realize that Loki died in IW. Yes, I already knew that; but I honestly didn't really care about it until I read "[Memento Mori](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176378/chapters/35194295)" by [GwendolynStacy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynStacy/pseuds/GwendolynStacy). (Btw, check that out. It's amazing.) In my growing obsession with Loki and Tom Hiddleston, I decided to write this. I have everything planned out already, so you will be getting all 31. I'm not entirely sure how good they will be, but they will be there!
> 
> Anyways, lots of Loki and, by default, lots of Thor because I love their brotherly relationship. The rest of the Avengers also appear.
> 
> Also, a lot of these are gonna be AUs bc canon Loki doesn't give you much opportunity to hurt him (sorry Loki).
> 
> I apologize in advance if, in later chapters, Loki seems like a wimp. It's what happens with whump, and his character's kinda hard to write. I'm trying here.
> 
> Review? Please? Let me know what you think?

Loki wondered why everything was gray and blurry. Or maybe that was just him.

He wasn't too sure.

The spots in his vision slowly disappeared as he blinked, and he realized he was staring at the ground with his arms chained somewhere above him.

He gasped quietly, struggling briefly to gain purchase on the ground and relieve his arms of his weight. They throbbed.

When he was relatively sure he wouldn't topple over, he sent a bolt of his magic up to break the shackles apart.

The shackles stayed.

He frowned, and tried again.

The results were the same.

_Well that was strange..._

He flexed his fingers, wriggling them in the cuffs. They _seemed_ normal...

He decided to let them stay for now and review the events leading up to him waking here.

He came up startlingly blank.

Well, based on the throbbing of his head and the wet trails of blood sliding down the side of his face, it wasn't too far fetched that he'd have a concussion. But he prided himself on his memory, among other skills, so it wasn't a good feeling.

The sound of a door unlocking echoed throughout the dark room. The door opened, and a man in a black mask walked slowly towards him.

Loki thought it was a bit cliché, but he decided to humor him for now.

The man clapped. "Okay. Let's get down to business. We want you to help us kill the Avengers."

Loki stared. He actually got to the point. Apparently this was one of those people who _didn't_ idiotically reveal their plan to the hostage (the hostage that was currently him, but he tried not to dwell on that).

"Why?"

The man, who was some no-named villain that wanted someone else to do his work for him (that someone else being Loki), seemed taken aback by his question, as if he didn't have a backup plan for his extremely terrible plan. (Well, Loki supposed, he _had_ somehow gotten magic-restraining shackles, so he should give him a smidge of credit.) "Because you've tried to do so before?"

Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes, not just because the action would be unbearable with his raging headache, but because this man was pushing at the ends of his patience. "Exactly. _Tried._ I've learned that I should fight with them instead of against them."

"But, we have-"

"Okay, I don't care about whatever weapons you may have. I had an _alien army_ and I still failed."

The man nodded slowly, then tried to go through with another tactic. "Well, why not, then?"

"Why not what?"

"Why not help us?"

"I simply don't feel like it. It would be far too much work." And frankly, Loki was getting tired of the position his body was being put in.

While the man tried to think of more useless things to say, Loki focused on sending the bulk of his magic up to the shackles to try and unlock them (preferably before the man resorted to less polite means).

He watched as another man came in, just as masked as the first. Loki wondered if that was some kind of group uniform they had to wear. "What's taking so long?" he asked.

The first man sighed in exasperation, which Loki did not appreciate. "He doesn't want to."

"He doesn't - isn't this the guy who attacked New York? Of course he wants to!"

Loki interjected with, "Don't claim to know my motivations." They abruptly turned their heads to look at him, and he gave them his most winning smile...which was more like a smirk than an actual smile.

Then, he felt something give way, and looked up. The shackles were still on, but apparently, he had overpowered the commodity that had been keeping his magic hostage.

He flexed his fingers, allowing green to envelope his hands and wrists. His smirk became a bit more sinister as a _click_ sounded throughout the room.

The two pathetic mortals gulped.

* * *

By the time the others had come, Loki had successfully subdued all of the people in the building and was sitting idly against a column.

They stopped abruptly at seeing him. "Took you long enough," he drawled out.

"Show-off," Agent Romanoff muttered. She and Barton began rounding up the hostiles.

"You couldn't have given us something to do? I took my new suit out for this!"

"Tony." The captain's face had morphed from slight concern to disapproval.

He shrugged. "It's true!"

And then there was Thor, who immediately ran to his side and began checking for injuries, eyes lingering on the dried blood on the side of his face.

"I'm fine, Thor."

"But-"

"It's fine. I healed it. I'm all fine."

Thor didn't look convinced. "We should still have Banner take a look at it."

Loki sighed. Sentimental oaf. "Fine, jus-"

A roar from the Hulk sounded from somewhere outside, followed by a large crash that caused the building to shake dangerously.

They stared at one another for a few seconds before Romanoff, Rogers, and Stark hurried out of the building at varying speeds and varying amounts of concern (or extreme enthusiasm when it came to Stark).

Loki laughed. He _knew_ the mission had gone a little too well.


	2. In the Hands of the Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh...I didn't realize 'til now how popular Whumptober was for this fandom. Maybe I should've picked a different title...

Loki didn't know who the enemy was anymore.

It was a simple fact, really; he just didn't like the implications.

(He was damaged beyond repair, the Void broke him, he wasn't the same person he had been before, he didn't know who he _was_ anymore, Thanos took something from him and he didn't know how he could get it back.)

After the whirlwind that was the invasion, he still didn't know who the enemy was. The obvious answer would be those Midgardian heroes, which somehow included Thor. The less obvious answer would be Thanos.

And then there was the part of him that thought _he_ was the enemy. It was either fight Thanos and the Avengers, or fight the monster that was himself (and he would've surely lost the latter).

So here he was, stuck in a golden cell below Asgard, trapped here like the crumbs people swept under their carpets, because the others thought he had lost, when surely he had won. (He had wanted to lose; he had had to lose to win. What constituted a win or a loss? He had won _and_ lost.)

Unfortunately, all victories included some downsides. The books weren't enough, and the silence was beyond suffocating. He tended to walk around the cell over and over again, as if a new round would help him _understand_. (Understand _what_ , he didn't know.)

Time in prison had numbed him. He didn't really remember why he had wanted to rule Midgard anymore. Now that he looked back on it, it seemed more and more like a stupid and childish endeavor.

A bitter smile split his face. As if _that_ would've satisfied his need to be Thor's equal, which was, in itself, stupid and childish.

So had it been the need that had proposed the action, or the action that had tried to briefly satisfy the need?

Of course, he had to account for the wild card that was Thanos and the Other and the mind stone and the darkness and - and the - he swallowed and tried to close his eyes against the onslaught of memories, but when that didn't work, he curled up on the floor.

Ragged gasps sounded through the cell, and he reached out with his hands, with his magic, for anything that could ground him.

He found nothing, of course, but that didn't stop the panic from bubbling up.

The Other had promised him unimaginable pain if he failed...Thanos - Thanos would find him here, pathetic in his cage, and punish him for his failure.

It was pathetically sentimental, but he wanted Thor. Thor meant he was safe. Thor always protected him. Thor - Thor put him into this prison and hadn't visited him since, probably hated him now.

He pressed his forehead to the cold white tile below and tried to calm his breathing, grimacing at the feeling of tears on his face.

"Loki?"

He froze, and glanced up to find his mo- the Allmother looking concernedly down at him. When had she come down here?

He set his gaze on the ground again and swallowed. Her concern was sorely misplaced.

"Loki."

Why did she care?

"Loki, look at me."

He did.

She reached out as if to cup his face, but stopped short of doing so. "Oh, my son. What has happened to you?"

Son? Son. _Son._ He replayed the word over and over in his head, trying to look for something that wasn't there. She - she what? He was a filthy Jotun who was brought here by a matter of chance and diplomacy. She wasn't - he wasn't - he-

A tear fell from his face.

_She doesn't care._

_But why doesn't she?_

_That's what_ love _is._

"Mother," he gasped out, and her face softened and she reached out and he flinched, but she - she was _solid_ (not an illusion), and she cupped his face and stroked his cheek with her thumb.

It was gentle and soft and everything he had missed, and she wiped his tears as she let her own fall.

(She was crying _for_ him.)

He sobbed, because he didn't deserve it, because she was just setting herself up for more heartbreak. She wrapped her arms around him, and he held back just as tightly, crying into her dress.

They stayed like that for a long time, the Allmother and her traitorous son.

And Loki knew it wouldn't last, knew that in his mind, Asgard and Thanos and Thor and the Void would morph together again into something indiscernible, into something he had to fight, into the enemy, and he'd be all alone again.

But for now, _for now_ , he was content.

He might've not known who the true enemy was (if the enemy was himself), but he knew for certain that his mother was not it.


	3. My Way or the Highway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know these are all supposed to be unrelated (unrelated as in separate universes bc it makes me feel better if it seems like I don't hurt one Loki too much), but you can probably consider this a prequel to the last chapter...which doesn't make much sense, considering the order, but humor me, okay?
> 
> I'm slightly sorry if this Thanos plot point gets overused, it kinda just happens, y'know, and I don't want to combine any of the prompts, so yeah.
> 
> Hopefully, you'll like this daily dose of Loki whump. Review if you want.

Loki didn't know what had been worse: the falling or the landing.

It hadn't been a soft landing.

Though falling through the vacuum of space hadn't been nice, either. (It hadn't been the falling, per se, but the feeling of it never ending.)

But at the moment, with his multitude of broken bones, he figured the landing had been worse.

It didn't help that he was being dragged somewhere by two of these creatures that had found him.

Eventually, he was unceremoniously deposited at the feet of a wrinkly purple giant sitting on a throne. A _titan_ , he corrected himself, one who exuded the kind of self-righteous aura that Odin had always had.

 _Odin_ , he sneered. Perhaps, after his little stunt, the Allfather would have to take him seriously.

But, at the moment, he had this grape to deal with.

"Your clothing indicates someone of rank," the titan said, cocking his head a little.

Loki snorted. "Of course it does. Ruling is my birthright."

"Oh really? And what happened for you to have fallen here?"

Loki tried and failed to press down the childish resentment that had swelled up. "They didn't want me," he said, rather petulantly.

The titan smiled condescendingly down at him. "But I can make you a king. I will let you rule whatever measly world you want, but only after you help me with my mission."

Something about that sent chills up his spine, and he vaguely registered that two figures had emerged from the shadows behind him. "And what is your mission?"

"Titan was like most planets..." He proceeded to tell Loki his entire backstory, and as his magic slowly started healing his bones, and he slowly started to stand up straight, Loki realized with growing horror who this was: Thanos.

The Mad Titan. The one who wanted to eradicate half of all life in the universe to "save" it.

He had heard rumors about this one, and though he wasn't past killing people for his own needs, he was fairly certain he wasn't _that_ deluded.

"So, will you serve my purpose?"

Loki knew the answer to _that_. He tore his magic away from healing and sent it out in a green burst, disintegrating the creatures that had brought him here, toppeling over a pillar, and blasting everyone else back.

He then proceeded to run out, fighting his way through the hordes of creatures that tried to stop him.

He would like to say he made it far, but he hadn't even made it close.

Something - some _one_ \- attacked his sedir and made him stagger. It felt like a blow to the gut. He tried to send up protective enchantments, but it was no use, and he watched as unfamiliar gray tendrils of magic started snuffing out the glowing green of his core.

Oh, the things a magic user could do to another.

He gasped and fell to his knees in another pathetic heap, watching as one of the figures from before walked towards him, examining him as if he were prey. He curled his fingers, and Loki was dragged towards him with a bit of telekinesis.

He supposed it could've been a fair fight had he been at full strength, but he had been far from it, and this was one threat he had failed to take seriously.

He felt uncomfortable as his core, the basis of his being and where his magic came from, was prodded and poked. He couldn't move, couldn't do anything to protect himself; it made him feel vulnerable. "This one's magic is unusually strong, my lord. He may be helpful in your quest."

Thanos seemed to consider him for a moment, and Loki glared at him as defiantly as he could from the ground.

"Then so be it. He _will_ help us. He just needs a bit of...convincing." He smiled sinisterly, and Loki shrunk into himself despite his best efforts not to.

"As you wish, my lord." He shoved Loki against a wall with his magic and pinned him there, causing Loki to groan. He started to move closer to him before the other figure stopped him. This one was cloaked, with a wrinkly face and knobbly hands.

"No, Ebony. Let me," he said in a raspy voice, and Loki struggled, trying to get out get out GET OUT before one of those knobbly hands pressed against his forehead.

Pain. So much pain exploded behind his eyelids. He grit his teeth against it, vaguely hearing a remark about his pathetic resistance before the hand pressed in harder.

He screamed.


	4. Running Out of Time

Loki ran.

And Thor ran after him (like thunder after lightning).

Unfortunately, Thor, being the muscly warrior that he was, caught up to him and grabbed him around the shoulders, forcing him to stop and turn his body so he faced Thor.

His breaths were coming out in ragged gasps and his hands were shaking.

"Loki? Loki, what's wrong? Who's in that ship?" Thor asked, searching his face for an answer.

Loki cursed silently. The idiot didn't _understand_. They didn't have _time_.

"We have to evacuate," he murmured, barely louder than the pounding in his ears.

"Yes, you said that before. I just don't understand why!"

_Of course you don't, Thor. You've missed so much._

Loki swallowed. "The leader of that ship is the Mad Titan Thanos, and trust me, you don't want to cross paths with him."

Thor's brows furrowed. "How do you know this?"

_Oh, great. The oaf probably thinks I've betrayed him again._

"I've...met him before. In the Void."

And that was enough to render Thor speechless for the three seconds before the first explosion. The ship began to shake.

Loki grit his teeth. "Now, would you like to evacuate the ship?!"

Thor's one eye widened. "Uh...yes, yeah. We should probably do that."

* * *

The evacuation had started, Thor had sent out a distress call, and Loki had a decision to make.

He looked at one of the screens on the console: SHIELD STRENGTH 25%.

Grimacing, he gathered up a good bulk of his magic and swiped through the air. Outside the ship's windows, the green tint of his magical shield could be seen, and the shaking lessened considerably.

Thor looked at him gratefully, and Loki vaguely wondered if that look would continue if he knew.

There weren't possibly enough emergency pods for everyone on board. Far from it. They would never get everyone out. _Unless..._

Loki grimaced. _Fuck it_. "Thor?"

Thor turned briefly to acknowledge him. "What is it?"

"We don't have enough pods to get everyone out."

Thor ran a hand through his hair. "I know."

"So I propose a different method of evacuation." Loki conjured up the tesseract in his hand, and waited for Thor to yell at him.

It didn't come.

"You really are the worst, Brother."

Loki winced, maybe that was worse than the yelling. "I know - I just - I couldn't have escaped Asgard in time without it. I should've left it there-"

"No, no. It's fine. I didn't mean - I'm _glad_ you're here. And if it can help get everyone out, then all the better."

"Well...this is probably the reason Thanos is attacking us." Loki didn't know why he was trying to get Thor mad at him.

"Yeah, about Thanos..."

Loki recognized that look. "Now is not the place or time for a _talk_. We have things to do."

"But, I don't _understand_." _Help me understand._

And, amidst all of this chaos, Loki felt that he couldn't deny his brother this sliver of information. "Look, Thor. Long story short: Thanos was the one who sent me to attack Midgard. I failed. If he finds me, he's probably - no, _definitely_ \- going to kill me for that. So I'd rather we get off this damned ship as soon as possible." He sent Thor a look that meant he was done talking.

Thor didn't seem too satisfied by his explanation, but at that moment, his shield was shot numerous times at the same point, coupled with magic that he sensed as Maw's.

His shield flickered and disappeared, causing him to stagger and Thor to reach out a hand to steady him.

He brushed it off. "I'm fine. They're probably gonna board the ship now."

Thor frowned. "Then we must gather a group of able-bodied people to fight them." Not that there were many left.

Loki nodded. "You go do that. I'll open a portal and get all the women and children out first. Delay them for as long as you can."

Time was something they didn't have.

* * *

Loki held the tesseract in his hand. Its familiarity was reassuring to him. _This better work._ He focused his magic on it and concentrated.

A swirling blue portal about 10 feet wide appeared in front of him. He smiled briefly, relieved.

"Where's that taking us?" the Valkyrie asked in her usual brash manner.

"Midgard." Half of the Avengers were hiding out in that particular place, last he'd checked.

Not that he particularly wanted to see them again, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

The sound of fighting started somewhere on the ship, and Loki grimaced. "Move it, people! Move!" Valkyrie ordered, and if the people were offended in any way, they didn't show it, too panicked to do much else than follow her orders.

Loki grit his teeth as he created a light protective shield around the group. His magic was straining.

He could see Korg trying to calm everyone down, and Heimdall ushering a group of children quickly through the portal. A voice broke through his concentration.

"Prince Loki?" Huh. He hadn't been called that in a long time. He belatedly looked down to see a little girl watching him with wide eyes.

"Yes, child?"

Tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. "Are we going to be okay?"

He swallowed. He wasn't sure, but he tried to echo Thor's earlier sentiments. "We're going to be fine." He put a hand on her head and tried to sound sincere.

She nodded multiple times, sniffed, and furiously wiped at her tears. "Okay." She hugged his legs tightly and ran away, presumably to find her family.

Loki struggled not to gape at her departing form.

* * *

They were almost done. They were - they were almost done. He didn't know where Thor was, but maybe, just maybe, things would be okay.

He should've known not to tempt fate.

"Well what have we found here?"

Loki stiffened and turned around. He smirked. "Proxima. It's been a while."

"Oh, it _is_ you. Father will be pleased."

"He is _not_ my father," Loki said, voice brittle.

The people were behind him. What was left of Asgard was behind him.

He conjured up a dagger and changed to a fighting stance.

"Oh, you always make things so difficult."

She unsheathed her weapon and swung it out in front of her in a dramatic arc.

He had always hated that spear.

* * *

His dagger was knocked out of his hand, followed by the tesseract. _Shit_. He could hear sounds of alarm as the portal closed.

Loki was on the ground, trying not to gasp from all the pain. There were multiple deep slashes on his arms and torso.

She kicked him in the stomach, knocking him onto his back and causing him to groan. "Pity I can't finish you off. Father has something... _special_ waiting for you back on the ship.

Loki tried to crawl towards the blue cube that was their salvation. "Oh no you don't." She stomped on his face, and the force of it broke his nose. He felt blood flowing down his face and grimaced.

He was about to shield himself from another blow before a roar sounded, and the Hulk grabbed her and flung her across the ship, where she crumpled against a wall and laid unmoving.

Hulk lumbered away to find another victim to beat up (Loki hoped it would be Thanos), and he wasted no time in getting to the tesseract and opening the portal back up.

* * *

He grit his teeth and leaned against the wall for support as the ship shook.

Loki didn't know how long it bad been. The power of the space stone was trying to make his magic fray, and he was barely staying conscious as it was. He could feel the puddle of blood below him grow with every passing second, and he couldn't spare his magic for his own healing. His breaths were coming out too quickly to be healthy.

"Loki. Loki!" A hand was tapping his cheek, and he opened his eyes to find Heimdall's hazy face in front of him. When had he closed his eyes?

"Everyone's out," Heimdall assured him. "It's just us now." Loki nodded faintly. "You did good, my prince. You just need to get us out now."

"Okay, okay," he breathed out. He focused on closing the other portal, and conjuring one up a few feet away.

"Let's go. One, two, three, up!" He hauled Loki up by his free hand and let Loki lean on him for a second as he struggled to stay upright.

Loki swallowed down the taste of bile. "Come on," Heimdall said, golden eyes watching him with concern. Loki's arm was swung over his shoulders, and they stumbled into the portal.

His legs gave out as soon as they got to the other side, and the tesseract tumbled out of his loose grip, closing the portal behind them. His muddled brain registered Heimdall catching and lowering him to the soft grass below, and the last thing he saw before the darkness overwhelmed his vision were the fluffy clouds in the blue sky above.

It reminded him of home.

* * *

He came to in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar devices attached to his body.

But Thor was beside him, and he smiled faintly, watching as his brother drooled into his own hand.

He looked almost peaceful sleeping like this.

Loki grabbed his decidedly cleaner hand and squeezed it a little. He closed his eyes and breathed for a minute.

A minute turned into two.

Two turned into three.

Before being lured back to sleep.


	5. Where Do You Think You're Going?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU where Loki somehow falls to Earth after Thor 1 and gets mixed up in the lives of a bunch of people we know. I'm actually surprised I wrote this much lol.

Why was he doing this?

Sentiment? Concern for Thor's well-being?

He shouldn't care about Thor.

(Did he mourn?)

Loki snuck into the frozen palace. It was one of the only skills he excelled at that Thor didn't.

Perhaps time on Earth had mellowed him out. Perhaps he was being a coward by hiding out there.

He didn't think he wanted the throne anymore. He didn't think he was angry anymore.

Thor's abduction had forced the God of Lies to face the truths.

He grimaced, continuing to the dungeons where he assumed Thor was being kept.

What was going to happen after this? Was Thor going to drag him back to Asgard?

He never did like uncertainty.

He used a tracking spell to find the cell Thor was in, only having to knock out three guards on the way there. (Which was slightly unusual, but Loki pinned it on their arrogance.)

How _had_ the idiot gotten himself captured in the first place? Loki scowled at the door to his cell. It was always _his_ job to get him out of trouble, even when he was presumably dead.

He sighed. "Well, here goes nothing."

He pushed open the door.

* * *

_"You have to save him!"_

_He didn't know how she had known._ He _hadn't even known (not that he had kept track of Asgard's affairs after his fall to Earth, but still)._

_"Please, Luke!"_

_Had Heimdall told her?_

_"Look, I_ know. _I know you said Asgard doesn't want you, and that you're better off here, but Thor's in trouble!"_

_And that was supposed to mean something to him?_

_"If I ever meant anything to you, please do it. Consider it a favor."_

_Did she mean anything to him?_ Of course, you idiot. She's Thor's mortal. _Did_ Thor _mean anything to him?_

_Loki swallowed. "I'll do it."_

_Oh, he was going to regret that._

* * *

"You're alive!"

"Yes, I thought we already established that."

"You're alive!"

"Please stop repeating yourself. It's extremely unbecoming."

"But you're alive!"

Loki had tried to sneak them out of the palace. Of course, he should've realized anything involving Thor could never work stealth-wise, so now they were running across the icy terrain, followed by hordes of Frost Giants. The sight was familiar.

"I don't have my hammer!"

"Then summon it, you dolt!"

Loki conjured up two of his knives and tried not to regret freeing his brother. Thor was beside him, throwing his beloved hammer around and knocking Jotuns back. Seven months of Loki being presumably dead, and they were already fighting together, side-by-side. It was so, _so_ achingly familiar.

"Where have you even _been_ this whole time?" Thor asked during a lull in the fighting. Loki rolled his eyes and pulled him out of the way of a flying spear. They started running towards the point where Loki could portal them out.

"Midgard." Thor turned wary eyes towards him. "Oh, please. They're all fine. Your mortal's been worried about you."

His eyes lit up immediately. "Jane? You have talked to her?"

"Well...yes. Sentiment, perhaps. She doesn't know who I am, though."

"She doesn't know that you're my brother?"

Loki scowled. "I'm _not_. It's not as if that's a lie."

Thor frowned, then opened his mouth to say something more before a lone Frost Giant came out of the trees and threw an icy dagger at them. Loki, being the idiot that he was (he didn't like the magic that rolled off of the blade in waves), pushed Thor out of the way and was impaled in the arm. He gasped in pain.

Thor knocked the Jotun out and turned back to Loki with concerned eyes. Loki waved him away with his uninjured arm. "We're here. Come on." He closed his eyes and focused on opening the portal up despite his injury. Hundreds of heavy footsteps could be heard from just beyond the trees. (Now that Loki thought about it, how _did_ trees grow in this weather?) "Let's go!" he urged, tackling Thor into the portal towards Midgard as they barely managed to avoid another flying blade.

He ignored the sinking feeling of worry, worry that the place he'd tentatively started to call 'home' would soon cease to be so.

* * *

 _"So, what? You're just gonna leave? Go poof?" Clint asked, lounging in a chair and watching Loki (_ Luke _) skeptically._

_He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yes."_

_"And...how exactly are you going to do that?"_

_"World-walking."_

_Natasha cocked her head. "What's that?" She was standing, leant against the table behind her._

_"It's magic that allows me to travel between worlds."_

_"Like the Bifrost?" Jane asked, brows furrowed as she tried to understand the science of it (just as she'd tried to understand the science regarding every single bit of his magic during the last few months)._

_"Well...yes. I suppose. Just without all the flashy displays."_

_"If there's world-walking, then why have a Bifrost at all?" Coulson asked._

_"The Bifrost is a device that can be turned on and off with a key, which happens to be a sword. World-walking is more like tearing a rip through space and literally walking through the branches of Yggdrasil."_

_Bruce frowned. "That sounds dangerous."_

_Loki shrugged. "It's why we have the Bifrost. Many have been torn apart attempting world-walking."_

_"Look, Silverson. I know you're reckless, but this is a whole 'nother level of recklessness."_

_Loki turned to glare at Clint. "We don't have another choice."_

_"And how do you know you won't be torn apart? That would take an awful bit of magic," Jane said._

_He smirked. "_ I _happen to have a natural talent for it."_

_"Of course you do," Natasha muttered, rolling her eyes._

_"But why does it have to be you?" Fury asked, and Loki wondered if it was genuine concern for his wellbeing, or just concern for a (Loki hoped) valuable agent._

_"Asgard doesn't want to wage another war with Jotunheim." He winced, remembering how he had almost started one himself. "I'm not technically of Asgard as of right now, so..." He shrugged._

_"And you're going alone? Are you sure you don't want us to come?" Steve asked._

_"The temperatures there are not...compatible for your fragile bodies. You'd probably freeze to death within minutes." Steve opened his mouth to argue. "Even yours, Captain."_

_"Well that's a wonderful thought," Natasha muttered. "Thought Russia was cold."_

_"And Asgardians? How are they with the cold?" Jane asked._

_"We're somewhat better suited. It's a bit cold, but we won't die." Well,_ he _certainly wouldn't freeze, but they didn't need to know that, did they?_

_They still looked somewhat worried, and he didn't really know how to feel about it. It was a pathetic thought, but he had never had...friends before. "It's fine, guys. It'll be a quick rescue, and then we'll be back here, presumably intact." He hesitated. "Might want to have some warm blankets waiting for Thor."_

_Loki pushed down the absurd urge to laugh. They didn't know the least of it._

_They thought he was some random Asgardian who happened to fall here when the Bifrost broke. They thought he was some pathetic social outcast with a grudge. They thought he was some kind of hero, working with SHIELD for the past few months and befriending many of their people._

_The truth was, he was far from some stranger (which would probably make the rescue a bit harder, anticipating Thor's likely outburst at seeing him). The truth was, they probably wouldn't look at him the same way if they knew who he really was (which was more painful than he'd like to admit). The truth was, everyone on Asgard probably thought he was dead. The truth was, he wasn't a hero._

_He was simply surviving here. Perhaps doing some good things, sure._

_But he was far from a hero._

_Thor would agree._

* * *

They collapsed in a tangled heap on the floor. Loki's eyes widened as he caught sight of the flying dagger embedding itself in the wall across the room.

"Get off me, you oaf! You're crushing me!"

"Well, it's not that hard of a thing to do," Thor said, rolling off of him and sitting up.

Loki scowled, brushing off nonexistent dirt from his outfit and ignoring the dagger just sitting in his arm. "I hate you."

Thor grinned that stupid grin of his. "No, you love me!"

He could feel eight pairs of eyes staring at the back of his head. Well, more accurately, at Thor, but close enough.

He was scared to turn around, because everything would change after this.

Thor put an arm on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but was met with a strange icy feeling on his skin. He looked down to see it turning blue and gasped, pushing Thor away. His eyes widened as he looked at his hands in horror.

"Okay, why does he look like a Smurf now?"

Loki grit his teeth. _Of course_ Stark had somehow weaseled his way into the room.

He breathed out raggedly, ignoring all the prying eyes. "Luke?" Jane asked, and if Thor was surprised by the alias, he didn't say anything.

"It's the dagger, meant to freeze whomever the victim is." He grabbed the hilt and pulled it out.

"Woah! Woah there! I don't think you're supposed to do that!" Bruce exclaimed.

"Well, I'm going to do it anyways." He closed his eyes, put a hand to the wound, and focused on healing it.

"You don't _seem_ frozen," he heard Jane say.

"Yeah, are all of you Asgardians blue underneath?" Stark asked.

Loki laughed bitterly. "No." They waited for an explanation. "I'm not _technically_ Asgardian."

He could feel Fury's scrutinizing glare from beyond his eyelids. "But you said-"

"Yeah, well. I was raised in Asgard. It is as much my home as Jotunheim is not."

"Which doesn't really mean all that much right now." Loki opened eyes he knew to be red to examine Jane's face. It held no malice.

"You're acting like it's the end of the world," Natasha noted.

"Isn't it?"

"No! Of course not!" Thor exclaimed, looking ridiculous with all the blankets he was covered in.

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Need I remind you of the war between Asgard and Jotunheim?"

"Things can change!"

"Oh really? We were raised to hate Jotuns! That doesn't change in a matter of months!"

"You didn't have to try and kill them all!"

"And who almost started a war after their failed coronation?!"

"Who let them in in the first place?!"

Loki grimaced. Wasn't his finest moment. "So...you two done yet?" Bruce asked awkwardly. He was met with two heated glares and raised his hands in defeat. "No? Okay."

Loki frowned. He was done healing. Why couldn't he put the glamour back on? Was his magic not working?

"Loki." Thor reached out to touch him, and he instinctively jerked away.

"Don't-" But Thor had successfully grabbed his forearm, and Loki closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable cry of pain...but it didn't come.

He opened his eyes again to see Thor in front of him. "I read up a little on Jotun biology," he said, "after you...yeah. Well, they apparently only freeze you when they want to."

"How did you know I didn't want to freeze you?"

Thor smiled in that infuriatingly bright way of his. "It was a risk I had to take."

Loki nodded, watching Thor's hand on his arm in morbid curiosity.

"Loki, look at me." Thor's other hand guided his chin up to face him. "Remember what I said earlier?" Loki didn't, not really. He had said many things earlier. "I said that you're my brother in all that matters, and it still stands now, even with your Frost Giant skin."

"Even with...everything else?" Attempting to assassinate Thor, ruining his coronation, pretty much faking his death for months.

Thor nodded. "Even with all of that."

And it was funny, really. How much that seemed to mean to him.

He focused on Thor's hand then, and his Asgardian glamour spread from that spot until he felt that he looked like himself again.

"Just interrupting what seems to be a personal moment here...aren't Frost Giants supposed to be, y'know, giant?" It was Stark. Of course it was Stark.

Loki scowled. "Even Frost Giants are prone to forms of dwarfism."

"Oh, right. Okay. Carry on."

"Wait wait wait," Jane said, hands held out in front of her. "You're his brother, Loki? As in, the-guy-who-sent-the-Destroyer-down-to-kill-Thor Loki?"

He scoffed. "Is that what I have been downgraded to?"

"Well, yes." Thor shrugged unapologetically.

Natasha jumped up as Clint groaned. "I knew it! I knew he was Loki! Clint, give me my money!" Loki couldn't say he was surprised.

"You're not...disappointed?" he asked hesitantly.

"While I wish I had known this, the Loki we know has been of the past few months, and they don't reflect badly on you. Why would we be disappointed?" If Nick Fury said any more, Loki was afraid his eyebrows would fly off his head.

"Yeah, but the Loki we know also has a tendency to avoid the med bay," Steve said.

"I'm fine! See? All healed!" He gestured to his arm.

"Uh huh," several people said at once.

"It's true!"

"That floor says otherwise," Coulson noted.

Loki looked down to find spots of his blood contrasting greatly with the white tiles. He magicked them away. "See? Nothing there!"

He looked up to see Steve, mouth set in a stubborn line and arms crossed in disapproval.

There was no arguing with him.

Loki threw his arms up (wincing only slightly at the pain in his arm). "Fine! Happy now?"

"Very. Come on." He dragged Loki out of the room and to the med bay.

Loki turned back briefly to find Thor having a sickeningly sweet reunion with Jane, and Fury looking almost giddy at the prospect of his Fantasy Football League (AKA the Avengers Initiative) being finished (and yes, Loki _did_ know what Fantasy Football was).

There was definitely going to be a lot of trouble down the line, but Loki felt that he had a group of friends to back him up.

What more could he ask for?

* * *

Darcy crept into his hospital room a few hours later. Loki glanced at her suspiciously.

"So...did you really bang a horse?"

Loki buried his face in his hands and tried not to die.


	6. Please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another AU, in which Loki somehow survives Infinity War and is there in Endgame (and not just 2012 Loki, mind you).

"So, what? Do we just pour it out?" Rocket asked, squinting at the canister held in his hand.

They had been trying to form their own version of the gauntlet. The key word was 'trying'. Tony was about as confused as everyone else was.

"I don't get it." Bruce rubbed his forehead. "Why is the reality stone liquid?"

"How the hell did Thanos get it solid in the first place?" Tony asked, irritated. This was one setback they hadn't anticipated.

"I don't know," Rocket said, and shrugged. "Might as well pour it out. Can't hurt to try."

"Wait, no," Bruce said, concerned. "There's a lotta things that could go wrong with that."

Tony ran a hand through his hair. They didn't have time for this. They were _this close_ to getting everybody back, to getting _Peter_ back. He sighed. "Just do it, Rocket. If it doesn't work, we can just put it back in and try somethin' else."

"I don't like this, Tony."

"Me neither, but we haven't got any other ideas. Do it, Rocket."

The raccoon opened up the canister and poured the aether out. The red liquid floated in the air for a bit, and Tony had to appreciate its beauty for a second before it went all berserk and started flying everywhere.

"Woah!" He ducked under a table, Rocket did the same, and Bruce simply covered his face with an arm because he couldn't exactly do that anymore.

The liquid stretched and turned, knocking over a bunch of tools and threatening to turn the wall into cheese.

"What's happening?" Steve asked, running into the room. His eyes widened at the sight.

"Duck!" Tony screamed, and the not-stone missed him by a few inches. "Rocket! Get it back in the container!"

"Well, I can't! Not when it's like _that_!"

Steve began to run as the liquid followed him like a creepy red blob. "Why's it following me?!"

"I think it wants to possess you, like it did with Dr. Foster!" Bruce screamed back from the sidelines.

"Well stop it!"

"We can't!"

"What in the world-" Thor said, entering the room, Loki following in his footsteps.

The red liquid stopped then, cocking its blobby head to the side as if it sensed something.

And then it quickly changed direction, heading towards the pair by the door.

* * *

He gasped and choked as the aether entered his body, flowing through his veins as if it belonged there. Well, it didn't, thank you very much.

"Loki?" That was Thor. Thor's hands were on him; Thor was holding him up. Why was he feeling so faint all of a sudden?

"Loki!" His legs gave out, and he would've tumbled unceremoniously to the floor had it not been for Thor.

They were on the ground now. He could - he could hear people talking outside the buzz of his brain. He grimaced, trying to push it back so he could hear what they were saying.

"-don't understand! It didn't happen this quickly with Jane." Thor. He could feel the vibrations of his voice as Thor held him to his chest.

"The aether," he managed to gasp out, "it eats magic." Well _that_ was wonderful.

"Shit." Stark. That could only be him.

Loki could feel himself trembling. He couldn't control it. It felt like his body was being torn apart.

The raccoon walked towards him. "Here we go." As soon as the device touched his skin, the aether burst out and pushed everyone away with explosive force.

Loki, now with nobody to lean on, fell to his back. He blinked away his blurry vision. "Sorry, sorry."

"It's fine, Loki." Rogers. Always with his unbearably positive outlook.

"Well, that's not working. What are we gonna do now?" the raccoon asked.

Thor came back to pull him into a sitting position. "Can you control it, like Malekith?"

"I can try." He stretched out a shaking hand and tried to push it out of his bloodstream.

It gathered to the size of a pebble on his palm before it disappeared inside his body again with a flash of pain. He started coughing out blood. Or sedir. Or the aether. He didn't really know. All he knew was that the liquid dribbling out of his mouth was red.

Okay, okay. The aether didn't want to leave him until it sucked him bone dry.

Which was kind of a problem, since he'd be dead.

"It's killing him!" Ahh, Thor, ever the dramatist.

"We don't know what to do!" Bruce exclaimed, probably with hands held to his head in blatant distress.

He grimaced and buried his head in Thor's chest, fiddling with the front of his shirt. "Thor, _Thor_. I can't-"

"It's okay, it's okay. Just hang on." Thor wrapped his arms around his curled-up body and rubbed his back.

Hang on? He was _trying_ , damn it.

He swallowed, tasting blood, and tried to breathe.

In. Out. In. Out.

The reality stone was a parasite, and he was its most recent victim. He didn't like the feeling of his magic disappearing, being fed upon by some - some _entity_ , really. With all the power the stones possessed, they were alive. They _had_ to be alive.

A pulse of energy shot through his body, causing him to weaken. He found himself clutching his brother. "Thor. Get it out, get it out. _Please_ , Thor."

"We're trying," Thor said, voice rough. "Stark?"

"Sorry, Reindeer Games. It's just - this is way out of my pay grade."

"Aren't you a billionaire?"

"Shut up, Rocket."

"Please...please. Thor, make it stop." Tears of pain had found their way onto his face, and it was all he could do not to sob.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Thor whispered, stroking his hair in a weirdly comforting way and trying not to cry along with him.

All the noise in the room began to blur, and he slumped further against Thor, just trying to stay conscious.

He tried to think.

Thanos had gotten it solid, so definitely not through any magic-related method.

Thanos had gotten it into the gauntlet.

But...but he couldn't have used the stone without the gauntlet. So how had he controlled its form?

Control...form...solid...gauntlet...alive... _alive_. The stones were _alive_. They were like siblings. They - they wanted to be together.

So...so not control, then. Thanos hadn't done anything. The stone had _wanted_ to turn solid and complete the gauntlet.

Okay, okay. He could work with that.

He tried to push through the mush his brain had become. They were still talking, still trying to figure out what to do. "Get me closer to the gauntlet," he croaked out.

"What?" Thor asked, one hand still in his hair.

"Just do it." Thor complied, scooping him up in an undignified manner (not that Loki cared, with how dizzy he had become) and carrying him across the room.

He held his hand up towards the empty gauntlet and flexed his fingers again.

Pain laced through his head, and he cried out, coughing up blood with renewed vigor. He blacked out for a few seconds, and came to as Thor held him tight, rocking him back and forth in a manner Loki had never thought him capable of before.

"Loki?"

"I'm here." He coughed again. Red splattered the floor. Something was - something was _missing_.

Then it clicked. "Put the other stones in," he gasped out. Pressure was building in his chest, and it felt like he was going to explode. It wouldn't be long now.

They did as he asked, too lost to refuse his instructions.

Loki watched as the other stones were placed carefully into the gauntlet with almost surgical precision. It seemed to take an eternity.

And finally, when they were in, he felt the aether slowly recede from his bloodstream as it joined its siblings in completing the gauntlet. Loki was too weak to force it out any faster, and simply let the liquid flow out around him.

He gasped in relief as the last bits left his body, and watched faintly as it floated in the air briefly before conforming to a solid and placing itself in its correct spot.

He smiled briefly before blacking out.

* * *

"Oh, thank God. I thought we were doomed," Tony said, watching as the reality stone moved _by itself_ (Was it alive?) to complete the gauntlet.

Loki passed out, and Thor tapped his face to try and rouse him. "Loki?"

No luck. He was as pale as a ghost, and Tony didn't think he'd be waking up anytime soon.

"You think that'll leave any side effects?" he asked Bruce.

The big green guy shrugged helplessly.

Steve knelt down to take Loki's pulse. "It's a bit fast, but...but he probably just needs some rest." Thor nodded mutely, looking down at Loki's slack face.

They stood there in awkward silence. Apparently, seeing the guy who attacked New York like that had been a bit weird for them all.

Thor didn't seem to notice, covering the shivering Loki with his cape, and brushing stray hairs away from his face.

It was actually kinda cute, and Tony had the urge to take blackmail photos of the scene. (Loki would probably kill him, but Tony thrived on the dangerous side, so he supposed it didn't matter too much.)

He sighed. Glancing at the now-completed gauntlet. They were _so close_ , so why did it feel like they were _so far_?

"So..." he said, "who's going to bring everyone back?" _This is for you, Peter._

Everyone but Rocket and, obviously, Loki opened their mouths to argue.

Then an explosion happened. And everything went to shit.


	7. I've Got You

The building had collapsed on him. _Of course_ the building had collapsed on him. Midgardian architecture was just so fragile.

What he hadn't anticipated was getting trapped in the rubble with Natasha Romanoff.

"You good?" she asked.

No, he was not. "My legs are pinned."

"Lemme see." She moved towards him in their limited space to shine a flashlight at where his legs were supposedly still in front of him. Not that he could really feel anything other than the pain. Where had she gotten the flashlight, anyways?

"Shoot. You're bleeding." Yes, he could _feel_ it, believe it or not.

He grit his teeth as she tried to shove pieces of the building off, but immediately stopped when everything above them shifted dangerously. "Okay, okay. Let's not do that. Guys?" She put a hand to her comms, but all Loki could hear was static.

"I don't think they can hear us."

She nodded. "They're gonna find us eventually." There was a cut on her head, and it was dripping blood to the ground.

They sat there in awkward silence as the smell of blood grew worse. He was pretty sure most of it was his.

Oh well. Maybe he'd suffocate or lose so much blood that they'd be rid of him.

He winced. But then they'd have to deal with Thor, the sentimental idiot, and he'd probably mourn and whatnot and look like a sad puppy for a few weeks - and Natasha was looking at him weirdly and he stopped that train of thought abruptly.

"What?" he asked, irritated.

She shrugged. "I-

An explosion sounded from somewhere above, causing dust to sift down into their little bubble of space. Loki gave a cry of alarm as the rubble above started breaking and falling.

He put his hands out, and a protective green bubble flickered to life. Anything falling stopped at that barrier instead of on them, which was decidedly less painful.

He sighed. He probably should've done that during the initial collapse.

"That's what, 20, 30 tons of rubble? You sure you can hold it up?" Natasha asked after everything seemed to have stabilized.

"I'll manage."

"Think you can hold it up so we can get your legs free?"

He nodded, and she shifted in order to move the rubble in a better position.

"This isn't gonna be pretty." Well, _yeah_. He figured.

"I've had my fair share of battle wounds, Agent Romanoff. I can handle this."

"Natasha," she said, turning to look at him briefly. "We've been working together for five months already, the least you could do is stop sounding so impersonal."

"I'm sorry?"

She looked at him like he was an idiot. Maybe he was. " _Natasha_ , okay? We all call you 'Loki', and if you keep calling Tony 'Stark', I'm pretty sure his head is gonna explode."

He swallowed, not knowing what to make of this and trying not to cough with all the dust in the air. "Natasha, then." He made a face. "Nobody calls you that."

She smirked, almost done with getting his legs unpinned. "You're not calling me 'Nat'. We're not there yet."

He nodded. He didn't think he'd ever make it there. (It really was a weird feeling, how much he wanted to.)

"See? All done." She patted his leg, causing him to wince.

She immediately frowned. "I think this one's broken." She poked and prodded for a bit before taking off her jacket and trying to stop all the bleeding that had taken place.

It was a nice jacket; his eyes widened in alarm. "Don't-"

She glared at him, and he snapped his mouth shut. He closed his eyes in resignation as the pain started to flare up even more.

A few seconds of silence, of them breathing, and then, "We really are trying here, Loki."

He opened his eyes briefly. "What do you mean?"

"You, this." She gestured to the space around them. "Working with you, saving the world with you, even living in the same damn tower as you." She looked down, pressing on a particularly painful spot on his left leg. "But you don't seem to care sometimes, or want anything to do with us. We're _trying_ , Loki. You just have to tell us what we're doing wrong."

"I-" he choked out. "No, it's not - wha-"

"Are we too prying? Are you still getting used to this superhero stuff? Are you just plain bored? 'Cause I literally never see you get out of the Tower."

"It's...it just...it doesn't make any sense."

She raised her eyebrows. "What doesn't?"

"You all, doing this. _I'm the guy who attacked New York_."

"And?"

He gaped at her. "Have you forgotten-"

"I haven't forgotten anything. I know that's not exactly your greatest moment, and that a bunch of people died, and Clint still holds a grudge on you for the mind control bit. But, I also know that you don't seem like such a bad guy now. And you're trying, too. Trying to work with us to make things right."

"But-"

"No buts. You're saving people with us. You're trying to wipe the red off your ledger." She looked him in the eye; all of his arguments faded away. "And I respect that."

"Really?" He felt like a child, grasping onto strands of hope.

"Yeah. You're an Avenger now, whether you like it or not."

He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to think of an adequate response to that.

Nothing came.

"We've got your back, Loki. You just have to let us."

And maybe - maybe he could believe it.

They looked up as the rubble shifted to show the light of day and a familiar green face. He let his shield dissipate as soon as it was clear.

"Nice to see you, buddy," Natasha said. "Think you could give us a hand?"

They were lifted out, and Hulk frowned as soon as he got a better look at them. "Puny God hurt."

Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yes."

The beast's face twisted into something approaching concern. How ironic. "Puny God heal?"

"I will."

Hulk nodded and set them both down. Loki could see the others running towards them.

Hulk grit his teeth. "Only Hulk hurt Puny God! HULK SMASH!" He proceeded to beat up the rubble that had been crushing them, and Loki visibly struggled not to gape at the sight. Natasha smirked at him.

He turned his attention towards Thor as he ran over. "Are you okay?" He asked, crouching before him.

Loki sighed. The insufferable oaf. "It'll heal soon enough."

"Yeah, right. To the med bay," Natasha said. "You can't even walk!"

He scoffed. "Of course I - Thor! Thor, put me down! Thor!" He scowled at his brother's grinning face.

"Take him back to the Tower. We'll deal with cleanup," Steve said. And Loki thought he could detect a _hint_ of a smile.

"Brother, if you don't put me down right now-"

"But-"

" _Right now_ , I'll stab you."

"That doesn't solve as many problems as you thi- aah!"

"I warned you!"


	8. Where Did Everybody Go?

Loki didn't exactly know why it hurt so much, being abandoned like this.

It had happened before.

Memories of a much younger him and Thor resurfaced, of him being left in the library as Thor went to places with Sif and the Warriors Three. Of traversing the palace looking for his brother. Of nights spent wondering where he'd went. Of nights wondering why he wasn't enough.

And then there was his time in the Void. He supposed that one wasn't exactly Thor's fault, that Loki had been the one to leave this time, but it had still been so dark.

He had wanted Thor to save him then, hadn't really cared about anything else other than his big brother doing what big brothers always did (even if that was a pathetic thought).

Afterwards, after the invasion of New York, after everything went wrong, Thor had shipped him off to the dungeons and hadn't looked back. He hadn't registered it then, but he realized now that he had longed for Thor's company then as well, even if it meant them fighting again.

Fighting was better than the silence, than the loneliness.

And fight they did, against one another, with one another. It all blurred into the same thing, really.

It was probably why Thor had left him on Svartalfheim.

Had he been in Thor's place, he wouldn't have gotten his own body, either.

And afterwards in this long string of events, of being alone, he ruled Asgard under Odin's guise.

He couldn't say that he had been miserable. He just hadn't been particularly happy, either. (He hadn't realized how alone Odin had become without the three of them there.)

And lastly, there was this. Him on the ground, writhing in agony (because of Thor) on some trash planet.

Well, to sum up his point (because the electricity was making it slightly hard to think), he was no stranger to loneliness and abandonment.

So why did this time hurt so much?

_"Our paths diverged a long time ago."_

* * *

Sometime later, Loki found himself alone on the ship.

Alone by his own volition, mind you, and on the ship that he had brought to save Asgard, no less.

Why he _had_...he didn't really know.

Perhaps Thor was right, and there was still some good in him.

Or maybe he was being pathetically sentimental, because Thor had always managed to bring that side of him out. Perhaps he didn't want Thor to be alone, like he had.

Granted, Thor had the Valkyrie and Bruce and Heimdall and the rock person and the rest of Asgard, but...

Oh, who was he kidding? Thor would never be alone, at this rate.

It was Loki who would have to suffer it again and again, and maybe in the next few days, too, at the rate he was going.

It was inevitable.

He sighed, shrugging off his shirt in his self-appointed bedroom and looking at himself in the mirror. He winced. The fight and his subsequent escape from Asgard had not left him unscathed.

He twisted uncomfortably, trying to get a good view of his upper back, where Thor had put the device on Sakaar. He could only see the edges of raw skin, but it was enough to tell him the extent of that injury.

A soft green glow emanated from his body as he tried to heal all his injuries, including the unfortunate multitude of burns Surtur had given him. They would definitely leave scars, but those were nothing new to him.

He turned back to the mirror, eyes trailing up to the faint scar trailing the side of his face, almost entirely covered by his hair.

He smirked, remembering a time he had went looking for Thor (much younger, when he used to do that instead of resigning to his lonely fate). He had came upon a tiny cliff instead, and had tripped and fallen to the sharp rocks below.

This was a reminder of the injuries he had gotten.

He let his gaze fall lower, to the old wound on his chest. He traced it absentmindedly with his hand and frowned.

It was funny, how his scars always seemed to pop up when Thor wasn't around.

"Loki?"

He stiffened, turning around quickly. Well Thor was here _now_.

"What is it, Brother?" he asked, swiftly taking his shirt off the bed and shoving it back on.

"Loki." Thor stopped him.

He scowled, looking up to see Thor's face of concern and growing horror. "It's fine, Thor. I'm healing myself."

"No, that's not what I - oh norns, Loki."

"What?" he asked, gritting his teeth and trying to play clueless.

"Your scars." He could see Thor trying to piece everything together, could see that he was missing a few vital pieces.

"It's nothing." His voice was clipped.

"It's obviously something!" Thor exclaimed. "It looks like..." _Torture._

"It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Like hell it doesn't!" He tried to put on his shirt again, but Thor took it and threw it across the room. He conjured up another shirt, only for Thor to do the same thing with that one.

He sighed, giving up on ever getting dressed, and sat dejectedly on the edge of the bed.

He looked at Thor again, who was still trying to put together the puzzle that was Loki, and he was _so close_. He had never been that close before.

Loki didn't know how to feel about that, so he stayed silent, leaving his face carefully blank.

"When - when did that _happen_? I would remember if something like that...the Void." He looked up, as if to confirm his suspicions; and Loki stayed silent, which was enough confirmation for him.

"Loki?" he asked. He looked like a sad little puppy looking for answers, looking to _understand_.

Loki crossed his arms, as if to cover up this new vulnerability. "Like I said. It happened a long time ago."

He stood up and turned to walk away, but Thor stopped him with a hand on his arm. He was _really_ starting to resemble the sad puppy look now, Loki noted.

And were those tears in his eyes? _Hooray_. Thor was going to become a sobbing mess, and then Loki would have to be the one to deal with it.

" _Please_ , Loki. I need to know. I _wish_ I had known. I would've helped you."

"Oh, please!" Loki tore his arm from Thor's grasp. "You wouldn't have, too busy with your own stuff! You would've thought me a burden!"

"What? No! No, I wouldn't have. I would've been there for you."

"Then why weren't you?" he whispered, and that was the root of the problem, wasn't it?

Loki turned to stare out the window at all the stars out there. He pressed a hand to the cool glass and wondered where he'd be had loneliness and abandonment not been an old friend.

He heard Thor sniff a little behind him, before coming up and hugging him from behind. Despite his best efforts, he felt safe with Thor's arms around him.

"I know. I'm sorry," he mumbled tearily, resting his chin on Loki's bare shoulder. "I should've been a better brother."

Loki laughed bitterly. "I haven't exactly been the best of brothers either."

Silence reigned between them as Thor struggled to compose himself.

"Was this one from me?" he asked, poking at the back of his shoulder.

Loki winced, but didn't muster up the energy to swat him away. "Long-term exposure to that device isn't exactly healthy, Thor."

"I'm sorry."

Loki shrugged a little. "It's fine. I was an idiot."

"I shouldn't have, though." He could just _feel_ Thor's guilt slipping through.

"It's fine. It's in the past now."

"And this one?"

Loki paused. "Which one, Thor. I don't have eyes on the back of my head."

"The...the whip marks."

He grimaced, remembering the pain and the warm streams of blood flowing down his back, like rivers, like oceans. "I don't want to talk about that."

Thor acquiesced for now, and moved on to learn more backstories for his scars. Before, Loki would've found it an invasion of privacy, but now...

"The Kursed blade," Thor noted with some surprise. "I thought that had been an illusion."

He rolled his eyes. "Illusions are broken by touch, Thor." He let that sink in for a few moments.

"So that was all real?"

Loki nodded. "I suppose it is kind of your fault," he murmured.

"Why is it my fault?!"

"Just because one falls unconscious does not mean one is dead. You didn't even think to check for a pulse, you dolt!"

Thor had the decency to look a little sheepish. "Sorry."

"Stop saying that. I _am_ the one who left you all these years. And if I hadn't faked my death then, I would've surely done it sometime afterwards. You just gave me the right opportunity."

Thor nodded. "But I still am sorry."

"If it makes you feel better, then apology accepted."

Silence overtook them again, and Thor started swaying them side to side a little.

"And this one?" Thor pointed to a particularly ugly gash on his upper left arm.

He closed his eyes, trying to fight against the onslaught of memories.

"The Void?"

He nodded. Thanos's "improvements" had somewhat failed because of Loki's magic, but that didn't mean scars hadn't been left behind from their attempts.

"You weren't there," he said in a pathetically small voice.

Thor pressed a kiss on the top of his head and hugged him more tightly. "I am now," he said, voice rough.

Loki felt a lone tear slip down his cheek. "For how long?" he asked.

"For as long as you need me to be."


	9. For the Greater Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another version of Infinity War's opening scene...though this one's a bit more tragic (ahem, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH). Trigger warning for SUICIDE.
> 
> Inspired by [Howlingdawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/pseuds/Howlingdawn)'s "[Never Enough](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456417)," in which the same thing basically happens except with a LokixValkyrie twist. (Technically, I read the ff.net version first, and didn't realize Dawnstorm101 had an account on here until now. So many people cross-post!)

"Thor."

"No."

" _Thor_."

"There has to be another way. There's _always_ another way."

"You know I have to die, Thor."

The battle was at a standstill. Or, at least, it felt like one.

People were dying all around them, fighting and destruction was still happening, Thanos was _winning_.

And yet, all Thor could focus on was Loki, standing a few feet in front of him in some corridor of the ship, temporarily hidden from Thanos and his minions.

"He wants the tesseract-"

"I don't care about the damn tesseract!" Thor screamed. "I care about you!"

And Loki - Loki, his little brother - was crying. Thor watched, numb, as tears trailed down the dust and grime on his face, illuminated by the blue light of the cube that had doomed all of Asgard.

"Listen to reason, Brother." He put the tesseract back into his dimensional pocket and held placating hands out towards Thor. "I am the only one who can access the tesseract from this pocket. If I die, then he can't get it."

Thor registered vaguely that he wouldn't say Thanos's name. "But-"

" _Please_ , Thor!" And that was wrong; Loki never begged. Oh, norns, why did the universe hate them so?

"If he gets the space stone, he is one step closer to killing half of all life in the universe, most of whom deserve to live more than me." It hurt, knowing how low Loki held himself. "But we can stop him right now. As long as he doesn't get his hands on the time stone, the space stone is safe. Don't you understand, Thor?!"

Thor swallowed. He did.

"Please, Thor," Loki begged again, and it _hurt_. It hurt so much.

Thor tried to blink away the tears that were threatening to fall. "Why does it have to be you?" he croaked out. It wasn't fair, really, to find him again and then lose him so soon.

Loki smiled bitterly. "As is the work of heroes, Brother."

"But I need you! You're," his voice broke, "you're my little brother. You're not supposed to die first." And he knew it sounded childish, so childish, but he was selfish, and he didn't think he could watch Loki die for real.

Loki sniffed a little, lifting a hand to furiously swipe away tears. "He took something from me, Thor, all those years ago." His voice was soft, so soft that it almost blended in with all the chaos happening around them. "In doing this, I'll sow the seeds to his defeat. In doing this, I'll help end what I started by attacking Earth."

He looked Thor straight in the eye. "Let me do this, Thor."

Thor's face crumpled even more than it already had. Loki wasn't asking for permission. He would do it anyways (could have already). No, he was asking for _acceptance_. For _approval_. For the knowledge that his brother wouldn't be mad at him in his last moments.

And Thor couldn't possibly deny him that.

"I understand." And norns, was that his voice? It was choked, and shaky, and rubbed so raw that it hurt just to listen to it.

Loki nodded and smiled. A small one, but a real one. It seemed so out of place here, surrounded by so much death and destruction, surrounded by his tears, dripping one after the other down his cheeks.

Loki ran to him then and threw his arms over his shoulders, engulfing him in a hug. (Thor held on just as tight.) They stayed there for as long as they dared, stretching time out to simply be in the presence of one another.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Loki murmured into his neck. Thor buried his face in Loki's dark hair and said nothing, swaying them back and forth.

He didn't remember when they had last held each other this close.

"I don't know what I'll do without you," he managed to choke out.

"You'll live," Loki murmured. "You'll save the world again and again. You'll rebuild Asgard. And you'll be a great king. You'll," he swallowed a little, burying his face in Thor's shoulder, "you'll find Sif. I sent her to Vanaheim a few years back. You'll find Valkyrie and Korg and Heimdall, and those stupid Avengers, because those are the ones you should hold close. You'll find Jane, and you'll love her because that 'mutual breakup' didn't seem all too mutual." He sobbed, and Thor held on impossibly tighter. "And later, all of this won't hurt so much anymore."

It seemed wrong. "I don't want to forget you."

"You won't," Loki murmured. He pushed Thor away and conjured up a dagger (his ticket to death). "The pain will fade, but you won't forget."

"How do you know?" Thor asked. Loki hadn't even died yet, and he was already hurting so much.

"I know, because you'll keep on living your life. For me. For everyone else you've lost." He lifted the dagger up to his exposed throat and laughed a little. "I don't want to see you for _at least_ another thousand years."

"You won't," Thor promised. For Loki, he wouldn't.

Loki frowned. "It'll be quick. You shouldn't have to watch me die."

"Nobody should die alone." Loki nodded, a tiny bit glad that Thor would stay with him 'til the end. Thor watched as a few tears dripped down his chin, splattering the smooth surface of the blade.

"Say hi to Mother for me. And Father. And the Warriors Three."

"I will."

"I love you," Thor blurted out. He didn't remember the last time he had said that.

Loki swallowed, the front of his throat just slightly nicking the blade. "I...I love you, too." He closed his eyes, and his grip on the dagger tightened. "Goodbye, Brother."

Thor could only watch, an anguished scream caught somewhere in his throat, as his brother slit his own neck (quick, so he wouldn't have to register the pain). He shouldn't have had to do this. _He shouldn't have had to do this._

He caught his brother's lifeless body as it fell, easing him - it - slowly to the ground. He cradled the limp body to his chest and let out a sob.

Elsewhere on the ship, the Mad Titan roared, somehow sensing that the gauntlet couldn't be complete.

And Thor. Well, Thor took off his cape and wrapped it gently around his brother's body, like a blanket, like he'd wake up the next morning and everything would be fine.

He could almost be sleeping, if it weren't for all the blood.

"Rest, Brother." He placed a gentle hand on Loki's forehead. "I'll see you in a thousand years."

And then he ran back into the fight, as heroes did.

And later, after the ship was destroyed with purple strands of cosmic energy and he was sent hurling into the Guardians, he'd belatedly realize that he'd left his brother's body to the vacuum of space.

It was fitting, really.

Loki had always liked the stars.


	10. They Look So Pretty When They Bleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...slightly less sad chapter to make up for the previous one?

Loki was strapped to a table and being carved into by a bunch of dark sorcerers (darker than him, that was).

He didn't very much appreciate it.

He grimaced as the glint of a knife signaled the main sorcerer's move from his arms to his chest. It stung a little, sure, but that wasn't what Loki found concerning.

No, it was what was being carved into his skin.

He belatedly recognized the runes there as those of blood magic.

And sure, blood loss could be a problem soon, but blood magic allowed sorcerers to do unspeakable things to others.

In this case, steal another's magic.

He grit his teeth as the knife was dug in deeper.

He supposed he wasn't completely opposed to blood magic (just blood magic being done to him). It was messy, and it was gory, and most people considered it too dark to do.

But truthfully, Loki had...considered trying this branch of magic a few times. Most recently with the annoying Midgardian sorcerer who had trapped him in a neverending loop. _Yes_ , he thought. It would have been interesting to steal what pitiful magic the sorcerer had, just for the sake of revenge.

It wouldn't have killed him, of course. His magic had surely been learned, unlike Loki's natural magic.

Which brought him back to the matter at hand.

The problem with sedir was that it was tied to the sorcerer's life force, so if someone were to drain it out...

Basically, he was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt kind of pathetic, to be honest. He could feel their magic, and it wasn't very strong (hence why they were trying to steal his).

The only reason he was even here was because they had threatened the lives of Asgard's citizens. New Asgard, which was still trying to heal from all it had been through.

Loki couldn't let any of them die. Thor, who had been off in the United States at the time, would've killed him. (No, it hadn't been because he cared about Asgard. No. No!)

He curled his hands into fists and tried to break out of his restraints again. But, as before, a flash of pain shot through his body, immediately halting his efforts and increasing the intensity of his headache.

"You would do well to stop doing that," the sorcerer said, continuing to carve runes into his stomach. The others just nodded along, like the pathetic underlings they were.

He scowled. "You would do well to stop carving into me," he grit out, earning a slap in the face.

He wasn't fazed, even as he felt himself growing weaker and weaker from the loss of magic. "It's true. King Thor will surely kill you all if you keep this up." Not that he really wanted to depend on Thor, he just didn't have many options as of now.

The sorcerer scoffed. "King Thor is a weak king who doesn't know how to rule. He is nothing without his famed hammer."

Loki struggled not to gape. _Idiots_. _Do you not know of Stormbreaker?_ But before he could say anything more, the sorcerer buried the dagger in his chest. "Do stop talking. You're getting annoying."

He gasped as it was pulled out, warm blood trickling out of the wound. The carving continued after a moment of smug silence, and he was finding it steadily harder to breathe.

The sorcerer smirked, finishing yet another rune and starting another. Loki was finding it harder to focus, too. "It won't be long now." _Wonderful._

"Drop the knife," a gruff voice said from the shadows. The sorcerer froze.

It was Loki's turn to smirk now. _Oh, they are so done for._ All of the sorcerers turned so slowly and so in unison it was almost funny, to see Thor's hard face. Lightning crackled all around him, and he held Stormbreaker in one hand.

Loki didn't exactly know what happened next since he had promptly blacked out. But he assumed that Thor had taken care of them since he was currently undoing the four leather straps holding him hostage.

"Loki?" he asked, cupping his cheek briefly and brushing the hair out of his face.

"Thor," he murmured, leaning into his touch slightly. (If anyone asks, that didn't happen.)

His brother sighed, probably in relief, and Loki belatedly realized that Valkyrie was there, too.

"Y'know, Lackey. When I told you to distract them, I didn't mean give yourself up to them."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time." He shrugged, then frowned, catching a glimpse of the rest of his body. "That's a lotta blood."

"You're okay," Thor assured him.

"I know." A pause. "I'm tired."

Thor smiled. He seemed tired, too. "Go to sleep. I'll be there when you wake."

Well, Loki didn't need to be told twice. He drifted off into a dreamless sleep that bordered on unconsciousness.

But Thor was there, and that meant he was safe.

Pathetically sentimental, sure; but still, all that mattered.


	11. Psych 101

He hesitantly took his hand out of his pocket and traced the names engraved in stone. Over and over and over again. There were far too many.

_Owen Bostock_

_Fabien Wright_

_Freya Warner_

And there were other stones - other _plaques_ \- too. Hundreds of names, of lives lost, just sitting there, engraved, as if that would somehow make up for the light they surely must've cast on others.

_Charity Cross_

Light that he had snuffed out.

It hadn't hit him before - it _should've_ hit him before - how many lives had been lost during his invasion. Add that to the millions of dollars of infrastructure destroyed, and the people that were still marked 'missing' a few months later, but were surely dead (humans and their endless optimism), and the weight in his chest was growing overwhelmingly difficult to bear.

_Roberta Henderson_

_Huw Findlay_

_Dorian Wainwright_

_Alfie-James Rodgers_

He had gone on a late afternoon stroll to escape the suffocating atmosphere back at the tower, and had run into this memorial instead.

_Azra Riddle_

He should've stayed back at the tower.

_Sioned Abbott_

He didn't belong here, didn't deserve to mourn these people like he had known them.

_Zishan Mcarthur_

_Millie-Rose Betts_

Well, not quite mourn. Guilt. It was guilt.

Each name was like a knife to the gut.

_Yvette Walmsley_

_Saskia Squires_

_Alaya Dillard_

Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. Grandparents, siblings.

Even the one lone dog.

People passed by, going to and fro, none stopping because they didn't want to _remember_ the time he had ruined their lives and torn into their hearts and scarred them forever.

_Mia Harrison_

_Riaan Melton_

_Vicki Grimes_

_Rupert Cole_

_Franky Hogan_

He tried to choke back the sobs that had poured out of him, and looked up at the sky to try and blink his tears back.

It was dark. He couldn't see the stars here, but it was so dark. How long had he been here?

_Kaan Rowland_

He shivered for the first time, and not because of the cool breeze blowing through the street.

Footsteps seemed to echo, stopping right beside him. "Hey, Reindeer Games." A hand on his sweatered shoulder. "We've been looking for you."

_Danial Ramsay_

_Tayah Bannister_

He smiled bitterly, not looking up from all the names that had started to blur in his vision. "Worried I'd start another alien invasion?"

_Eliott Humphreys_

_Kara Burton_

"No, no. We were worried _for_ you. Bruce actually made something edible for dinner, and, well, you missed it."

"Why?"

_Rosie Cooper_

"Why what?"

_Sannah Edmonds_

"Why worry about me?" It didn't make sense.

Tony shrugged beside him. "Why shouldn't we?"

Loki gestured to all the names in front of them with a shaking hand.

_Tudor Beasley_

_Asia John_

_Jake Kemp_

_Izabelle Riddle_

Tony lightly shoved his hand down. "That wasn't you."

_Helena Cuevas_

Loki raised his eyebrows. "All the videos on the internet would beg to differ."

_Darcy Lowe_

_Nettie Travis_

Tony vaguely waved at his own head with one hand. "You were under mind control, or whatever."

_Etienne Aldred_

"It was still me."

"Hey, look at me." Tony grabbed his shoulders and turned him so he wasn't looking at the memorial anymore. He looked Loki in the eye. "Is it Clint's fault that the helicarrier almost went down?"

"No."

"Then why should it be yours if you - I dunno - happened to attack New York."

Loki stared. "You make it sound like no big deal."

"It _is_. But it's not your fault. It's the fault of whoever controlled you."

"So everything Clint did was my fault?"

Tony paused. "Stop twisting my words."

"Sorry. It's in my nature." Loki smirked, but it soon faded. "I've still done terrible things, even before-"

"Just shut up." He closed his mouth with an audible _clack_. "The fact that you're arguing with me about this shows that you've changed."

"But..." Loki glanced at the list of names again.

_Sapphire Whitney_

_Shanna Hendrix_

"Hey." He was turned away from the memorial again with a hand on the side of his head. "It's good. It's good that you're feeling this way. It means you're not heartless."

"But it hurts," he croaked out, a tear making its way down his cheek.

Tony nodded. "It does. I know it does. You just have to take it and make yourself better. Okay? Take it from personal experience."

Loki stayed silent.

"You're supposed to say 'okay'."

"Okay," he managed.

He thought he could believe it.

* * *

And, if, the next day, hundreds of bouquets of white flowers appeared at each and every memorial (even the private, small ones) with a flourish of green. Well, nobody mentioned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the random name generator for carrying me through this chapter.


	12. I Think I've Broken Something

Loki blinked. Once. Twice. "How...?"

Thor had the decency to look a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "It...happened."

Loki stared at the poor door Thor had somehow broken. A thick metal door at that, built by Tony Stark himself for the sole purpose of resisting Thor's strength. It was currently laying on its side on the floor, broken into three solid pieces, with the doorknob laying somewhere across the room. There was a ragged hole in the wall where the door was _supposed_ to be, but obviously wasn't.

Loki sighed, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, then turned, stalking out of the room.

"Wait, Loki! Help me!"

"Nope!" he called back. " _You_ deal with Stark! I'm going back to the peace and quiet and cleanliness of my own room."

"Wait, no! Brother, brother _please_. Lo-"

"What the hell happened to my door?!"

* * *

They crept around the semi-destroyed Hydra base, looking for anything remotely useful. Loki doubted they'd find anything.

His magic poked at him then, causing him to stiffen and look around. Nothing. His magic poked at him again, and he frowned. His magic was never wrong. He crept around the debris until he came across a small, flashing light attached to a device with multi-colored wires and a timer, nearing zero.

His eyes widened. "Shi-"

An explosion. Huge one.

Flying through the air. Weightlessness. Falling.

Knocking into something hard from behind.

Landing.

Blood. Heat.

Head throbbing. Air knocked out of lungs. Chest - chest hurt.

Breathe. Breathe. _You have to breathe._

Ears ringing.

Everything blurry. Blobs moving through his vision. Move. Move. Can't move.

Limp. Tired. Pain.

Blue sky; blue eyes. _Loki, stay awake._

The welcoming arms of darkness.

* * *

He opened his eyes, sitting up suddenly and barely holding back a cry of pain.

Hands on his shoulders and chest pushed him back down.

"What happened?" he asked. _Oh_ , his throat was so _dry_.

Thor seemed to notice, handing him a glass of water. He sipped at it slowly.

"There was a bomb there that we didn't catch. You were near it when it exploded." He sat on the edge of the hospital bed and patted Loki's blanket-covered leg.

"Injuries?"

"Bruce said most of your ribs were broken, and your arm, too." Loki looked down at his left arm to find it in a thin cast. "Three of the ribs punctured your lungs. Your magic's been working overtime to fix it."

Thor sighed. "If you were human, you'd be dead."

"Well good thing I'm not human, then."

Thor swatted lightly at his uninjured arm, so light that Loki probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking.

He frowned. "I'm not fragile, Thor."

"I didn't say you were."

"You implied it."

Thor looked miffed. "I did not."

"You did."

"Did not."

"Did."

"Did not."

"Did."

"Did not."

"Di- it doesn't even sound like a word anymore."

Thor smiled a little, but it soon faded. "I was really worried when I heard the explosion."

"I'm fine, Thor."

"You always say that."

"Because I'm always fine. You worry too much." Loki set the water down on the bedside table.

"It's my job."

"No it isn't."

"Well it's certainly not _yours_." Loki winced. He had a point there.

He glanced at Thor's face for a second. The big oaf had that kicked puppy look again. Oh, he _definitely_ wanted a hug.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Come 'ere." He scooched a little to the side, ignoring how his wrapped ribs sang in pain.

"But you're injured!"

"Has that ever stopped you before?" he pointed out.

He smirked; he knew that face. Thor was admitting that he was correct.

He crawled up onto the bed beside Loki with a sigh, hesitating to wrap his arms around him. "I'm healing, Thor. Not like that toaster you broke yesterday."

"Hey!" Loki smiled as Thor put an arm around his shoulders and let him lean his head into the crook of his neck.

"It's true. You're lucky Stark's a billionaire, or he'd be broke from fixing everything you've broken."

"I don't break _that_ many things."

"Need I remind you of the door from last week?" Loki asked, smug.

"That was a one-time thing," Thor mumbled, looking sheepish.

"You need to learn to control your strength, Brother."

Thor seemed to frown. "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

Loki shook his head. "No."

A few moments of silence. "I'm glad you're okay, Brother." A pause. "You were coughing up blood. I was worried."

"I'm alright, Thor." Loki patted his arm. "I'm glad I'm okay, too."

A snap of a phone camera, and they turned their gazes to find the others squished in the doorway, with Stark's blinding smile right in the center of it all.

"Aww...that's cute," he said, and if Loki could, he would've taken a pillow and thrown it at him. "I have blackmail material now."

He glared at Stark. "Doesn't Jarvis already record everything in the tower?"

"You better leave. I think he's gonna turn you into a frog," Clint stage-whispered.

"Shut up, Katniss. Jingle Bells here doesn't have a drop of magic to spare."

"Oh, I will by tomorrow." Loki gave them all his most winning smile (read: mischievous smirk).

* * *

The following day found Pepper Potts frantically chasing after a suspicious green frog encased in red and gold armor.


	13. Breathe In Breathe Out

Thor didn't know how Hydra was still alive.

They were rather resilient, which was fitting of the name, but he was getting tired of fighting them over and over again.

And they won each time, too. With _ease._

Or, well, they would have, if it weren't for this most recent mission.

He finished knocking out what seemed to be the last Hydra agent, but the lull in fighting made him uneasy for some unknown reason.

The fight didn't seem done.

"Guys? I've got the plans, but there's some white gas being released into the building," Tony said through his earpiece.

"Do you know what it is?" Steve asked, breathless from whatever he was currently doing.

"No. But you guys better hightail it out."

"Huh. Maybe they're learning something," Clint muttered as he ran.

Soon, Thor and Hulk, who had already been outside, were joined by Steve and Clint. They shoved the metal door closed, but not before Thor caught a glimpse of the fog-like gas floating towards them.

"Should we be safe out here?" he asked, brows furrowing.

"Yeah. It's only a problem in enclosed spaces. You should probably step away from the building just in case, though," Tony said.

"Are you out?" Clint asked.

"No. The mist got to me, but my suit's filtering it out. Jarvis is trying to figure out what this thing is."

They paused, now several yards away from the building. Two of their group hadn't answered, and even Hulk seemed concerned, frowning and turning his head towards the building. "Nat? Loki?" Steve asked into the comms.

Silence.

"Guys?" he tried again.

Silence.

Thor tried not to be worried.

"The gas came from their side of the building," Tony said cautiously. "But it's receding now. It seems to be a hallucinogen."

Well, at least it wasn't poisonous.

"I'm going in," Clint said, hardset on getting to Natasha.

"I'll go in as well." Thor needed to see that Loki was okay.

"No, guys. That might not be safe. We don't want to lose you too," Steve said.

Thor sighed. He was correct.

"They're spraying a counteragent into the air now," Tony informed them. "Probably wanted to incapacitate us, and then come and take us."

"So there could still be more hostiles in the area," Steve clarified.

"Probably." A grunt and a blast. "Definitely!"

They began running back to the building to see more Hydra agents swarming the building and the surrounding area. They just wouldn't go down.

"All of these guys have oxygen masks on. They were prepared. I'm starting to think these plans are how-to guides to making soup or something. I mean, jokes on them, I need that, but..."

"Tony, shut up," Steve grit out, throwing his shield like a boomerang.

"Okay. Shutting up now."

Thor continued fighting the enemy and his growing worry for their incapacitated teammates.

"Hey, guys? It's safe to come in now. If-" A crash. "If there's this many coming for me, I wouldn't want to know how many are coming for Nat and Loki."

Thor's heart plummeted with a _thunk_.

"Go," Steve said to both him and Clint. "We've got this covered. Right, Hulk?"

Hulk didn't answer, but he _did_ catapult five Hydra agents into the distance. Thor assumed that was a 'yes'.

* * *

He and Clint had split up towards Natasha and Loki's last locations, respectively. He tried to be worried for Natasha, he really did; but most of his concern was turned towards his brother, and he figured that she was in the best of hands with Clint.

He sighed. It was dark. Why were all Hydra bases so _dark_?

He turned a corner then, and ran, quite literally, into a masked Hydra agent. They stared at each other for half a second before Thor knocked him out with a swing of his hammer.

He stood in a fighting stance and prepared for more.

None came.

He slowly turned another corner, and then another, and was met with a trail of bodies. Each one had a familiar gleaming dagger in the neck.

"Loki?" he asked cautiously.

He paused, and heard the sound of ragged breathing.

"Loki?" He turned yet another corner to find his brother. His brother, being restrained by a Hydra agent with a knife to his throat and a gloved hand over his mouth. His hands were tied behind his back, as were his feet, and his eyes were unfocused.

"Let him go," he said, voice low. He couldn't hurt the man without hurting Loki.

"Drop your weapon, or I'll kill him," the man threatened instead. The knife was pressed into Loki's skin, and a thin trail of blood leaked from the cut. Loki tilted his head back, as if to avoid the blade, and closed his eyes tightly.

"Let him go," he repeated, feeling his anger grow.

"I don't think so." Loki gasped as his hair was grabbed, his head pulled back to expose more of his throat. Thor could see him blink a few times, as if trying to catch his bearings, before he elbowed the man in the gut. Hard.

The knife was dropped, Loki fell, and Thor threw out his hammer, catching the man in the chest and propelling him towards the far end of the hallway. The sound of the blade clattering to the ground echoed through the space.

"Loki. Hey." He knelt to the ground and quickly untied his brother. The cut in his neck had become jagged, but was still shallow and not inherently life-threatening.

Loki crawled away from him as soon as he was free, hitting the wall behind him with an audible _thud._ His breathing was still ragged.

"You're okay," Thor tried. _What's Loki seeing right now?_

His eyes darted everywhere, as if looking for an escape. "You're lying. Nothing's _okay_." He laughed humorlessly. The sound caused something to tighten in Thor's chest.

"But it will be," Thor said.

"No it won't!" Loki ran a hand through his hair. "It won't be because he won't allow it!" A tear fell from his watery eyes, and Thor struggled not to reach out and wipe it away.

"Who won't, Loki?"

Loki looked him straight in the eyes. "You _are_ a figment of my imagination, aren't you? Surely you must know." A few more tears fell, and he curled in on himself. Away from Thor.

And Thor knew. He did. It had taken a lot of coaxing, but Loki had told him eventually.

"Thanos isn't here." Loki flinched at hearing his name, and Thor winced. "He isn't here. _I'm_ here."

"No, I'm all alone. All alone, like always."

Thor moved closer and tried not to cry along with Loki. "Never think that. You're not alone, Brother."

Loki scoffed, even as he lifted a hand to wipe the tears away in a gesture so achingly childish that it tore at Thor's heart. "You're _not_. I wish you were, but you're not. I'm on his ship, and Thor will never come for me not because he _can't_ , but because be _won't_."

Something twisted in Thor's chest, and norns, it _hurt_. "I would have come if I had known."

Loki shook his head, not even bothering to stop the flow of tears anymore. "The _real_ Thor is brittle. He isn't soft. He laughs at my torments and cares little for me; _hates_ me, as he should, 'cause I'm a filthy Jotun, and I-"

Thor couldn't stop himself from wrapping his brother in a hug. "No! No! I love you, Brother, so very much. And you are deserving of that, don't you understand?"

Loki frowned. "You're warm. Thor - Thor isn't warm."

"I'm real, Loki," he said, hiding his tears in his brother's dark hair.

"But Thor's over there." He pointed at the now-unconscious man across the hallway.

Thor shook his head and swallowed. "That's not me." He rubbed soothing circles into the space between Loki's shoulder blades.

"How can I be sure?" Loki asked, all wide eyes and tears. Thor swallowed and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

"I'm warm, remember?" Loki nodded, and he pulled him closer to his chest. "The real Thor loves you without strings attached, and the real Thor will never hurt you like that titan did." He sniffed. "The real Thor needs you, Brother - _I_ need you." He tucked Loki's head under his chin, letting him calm down and simply breathe. "I can't imagine life without you."

"Promise?" Loki whispered softly, afraid that everything would be an illusion.

Thor would prove him wrong.

"Promise."


	14. Is Something Burning?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is kinda rushed; I'm not too happy with it. Oh well.

Thor watched himself in the mirror. Examined his eye, fiddled with the new eye patch, looked behind his reflection to find Loki stumbling into the room.

His breath caught in his throat. Loki didn't _stumble_.

"Loki?" he asked, turning quickly to find his brother - his little brother - standing unsteadily, with burns littered on his arms and legs and torso, and one bad one on the left side of his face; his clothes, usually impeccable, were singed badly.

"Loki!" He hurried forward to take Loki's arms in his own to try and steady him. At his touch, Loki hissed in pain, and Thor tried not to panic at how bad everything looked.

He let Loki tip forward and rest his head against Thor's chest as he lowered them both to the ground.

"Thor," Loki breathed out, tightening his grip on Thor's arms with badly burned fingers.

"I'm here. I'm here," Thor said, running his hand through mostly-intact hair. _Small mercies_ , he thought.

He continued the mantra of soothing words as he tried to think of what to do. The people were scattered. Still unorganized. Did they even have proper medical supplies on board? How was he supposed to get the healers? He swallowed and pushed down the panic. Loki needed him. He couldn't panic. For Loki. Always for Loki.

"Heimdall!" Thor called out to the room. He hoped Heimdall wasn't too busy. "Heimdall!" He hoped that was enough.

"Everyone...okay?" Loki rasped out, immediately starting to cough.

Thor patted his back a little. "Everyone's fine except for you."

"It...hurts."

"I know." Thor rubbed his back, ignoring the rips in the fabric. "The healers are coming." The healers better be coming.

Loki whimpered a little as Thor shifted him so they were sitting rather than kneeling. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Thor murmured, trying to ignore the smell of burnt flesh.

He looked down. Loki's eyes were closed. "Hey." He tapped his cheek a few times. "Stay awake."

Loki grimaced. "Don't want to," he mumbled.

"You have to."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes." Despite the situation, Thor grinned.

* * *

Eventually, Valkyrie ran into the room, followed by a small group of healers. Thor stood up as soon as Loki was taken from his arms, running a hand through his hair.

He watched them work on his brother for a moment before Valkyrie pulled him away.

"What happened?"

Thor shook his head. "I shouldn't have sent him to start Ragnarok."

She punched him in the arm. "Ow." He rubbed at the sore spot. "What was that for?"

"For being an idiot."

Thor frowned. "But-"

He was punched in the arm again. "You _had_ to do it to save Asgard. He agreed to it. It's not your fault Lackey's almost burned to a crisp. Stop acting like it is."

Thor winced. "He's not...burned to a crisp."

"Well he sure damn looked like it."

* * *

They found him in the makeshift healing rooms later.

He was blue.

Thor couldn't help but stare. He had never seen Loki in his true form before (and would probably never do so again, if Loki had his way).

"What the hell?" Valkyrie asked. She blinked, and then reached out, as if to prove that this was another of Loki's illusions.

Thor swiftly pulled her hand back. "Don't."

Her eyes widened. "He's really Jotun?!"

"Yes," Lady Eir said, walking towards them. She crossed her arms, looking down at her patient. "It seems to be his body's defense mechanism against the burns."

"But he'll be okay," Thor clarified.

She frowned a little, checking that the bandages were still secure before turning to leave the room. "It's not a problem. If anything, he'll just heal faster!" she called back.

After the echoes of her footsteps faded away into the background, Thor turned back to Valkyrie, whose wide eyes were still on Loki. "When Loki said he was adopted, I thought he meant another family, not another race," she said slowly.

Thor scowled. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. No. Just surprised, is all. Does the rest of Asgard know?"

"No."

"Probably for the best."

"Yeah," Thor said, sighing and sitting by his brother's bedside.

* * *

He woke up to the sound of slightly panicked breathing.

He sat up quickly, groaning at the crick in his neck, to find Loki looking warily at his blue hands.

"Thor?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes, Loki?"

"Is this real?"

"It is."

"I don't-" Loki grimaced, trying to put his Asgardian glamour back on. "I don't want it." He tried again, lighter skin crawling up to his wrists before submitting to the blue.

"It's fine," Thor murmured tiredly, putting a hand on Loki's clothed shoulder. He could feel the cold emanating from him, but otherwise didn't freeze.

Loki shook his head. "It's not."

"Loki, look at me." He did. "I don't care if you're Asgardian or Jotun. You're still Loki. You're still my brother."

His lips thinned. "That doesn't mean I have to like this." He looked down at his hands again, but with less panic and more disdain. Thor supposed it was an improvement.

He tried to put his glamour on again, but it worked the same way as before. "I don't think my glamour works without Father," he said, looking at Thor with worried eyes.

Thor frowned. "Here." He held out his hand.

Loki's eyes widened, and he leaned away from it as if it would burn him. "No!"

"Just - just hold it."

"What?! Why?!"

"It's-" Thor sighed, closing his one eye. "Just trust me."

He tried not to feel touched that Loki actually did what he said, hesitantly putting his much slimmer hand in Thor's.

Slowly, lighter skin started to spread from their joined hands until Loki looked Asgardian again.

He gaped. "How'd you do that?"

Thor shrugged. "I did all that lightning stuff, didn't I? I have _some_ magic in me that's not from Mjolnir."

"And, what? You thought your magic could act like Father's and...help me gain my glamour back?"

"Yes?"

"Your magic is nowhere near Father's, nor mine, for that matter."

"Uh-huh. I'm starting to see where this is going."

"And you decided to risk getting frozen and hope for the best?!"

Thor rubbed the back of his neck. "It worked, did it not?"

Loki looked like he was regretting ever knowing Thor. He groaned, burying his face in his hands. "You idiot."

Thor chuckled, but it soon faded out into the quiet.

"Thank you," Loki said. It sounded sincere.

Thor smiled, cupping the side of his neck. "That's what brothers are for."


	15. Into the Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If we're following the Loki dies (Thor 1, Thor 2, and IW), then Loki steals the tesseract (Avengers 1, Thor 3, and Endgame) pattern...this is what I'd like to see happen at the end of the Loki series. Like an end-credit scene. (Are they going to have mid- and end- credit scenes in the Disney+ shows?)
> 
> Basically, if 2018 Loki's dead, which I think he is, 2012 Loki has to somehow travel to the main MCU timeline, right? 'Cause Thor 4 would seem kinda empty without him. When he does do this, everyone in his timeline will think he died, when really, he just traveled to a different universe.
> 
> Yeah, this is just my theory.
> 
> Reviews, anyone? Please? *puppy dog eyes*

Loki smiled (kind of, he never really smiled any more; it was more like a sneer).

The spell had worked, the space stone had transported him across universes, and now he was in a whole new world he could torment.

He looked at New York from on top of a building. Well, _this_ universe's New York.

He frowned. This universe was right next to his. It couldn't be _that_ different, could it?

"Oh, this world is _very_ different from the one you came from," a voice drawled out from behind him. _His_ voice.

He didn't turn around. "You're this universe's version of me. I've trapped you in my head and taken your place in this world."

"I'm afraid I'm not anywhere I don't want to be. I'm simply a soul passing through your consciousness."

He turned around then, finding the other Loki casually standing across the rooftop. "So there's two of us here now?"

Other-Loki shook his head. "I never said I had a body, did I?"

It clicked. "I'm dead in this universe."

"I'm afraid so."

His curiosity was piqued. "How?"

"Oh," Other-Loki chuckled darkly, "it wasn't pretty."

Now his curiosity was piqued even more. "What happened?"

"Thanos. He strangled me, broke my neck, and now my body has been floating in the vacuum of space for more or less five years."

A shiver crept up his spine. "Thanos?"

"Oh, don't worry." Other-Loki waved his hand dismissively. "He's dead. Thank Thor for that." He paused. "Or, well, thank Stark for the other Thanos."

"Other Thanos?!"

"The Avengers were idiots, and somehow let 2014 Thanos travel to the future. So, really, there were two Thanoses in this timeline."

Loki blinked. "2014? It's 2013."

Other-Loki looked him up and down. "Perhaps time travels differently in your universe. It's actually 2024 right now."

He pursed his lips. "Why are you telling me all this? You don't seem too keen on taking over the world here."

"Well, I'm dead. Of course I don't care."

"But before?" he inquired.

"Yes, before. Attacked New York in 2012 like you. Faked my death once, temporarily ruled Asgard under Father's guise-"

"Odin is _not_ our father."

"But after everything, I believe I've attained what humans call a 'redemption arc'. At least, that explains why I'm somehow in Valhalla instead of Hel."

Loki blinked. "Your death didn't seem too honorable."

"I suppose not. But the intentions..."

"What intentions?"

Other-Loki crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at him, as if wondering how he was going to take the information. "Thanos has an...obsession with balance. You see, there were only the two of us left on that ship. If I died, then Thor would live. I had to protect Thor."

Loki scoffed. Was he serious? Was this version of him that weak? "Why, when he has wronged us so many times?"

Other-Loki shrugged. "Our brother-"

"He is _not_ -"

"I know, I know. He's not our brother, blah blah blah. Remember, I was you at one point in time." Other-Loki sighed. "Our brother - don't interrupt - he seems to love us, time and time again, no matter how many times we betray him or hurt him or belittle him. It is weirdly...endearing. Touching, really."

"Am I supposed to believe that?"

"Well I _am_ pretty much you, so I'd be inclined to say 'yes'?"

Loki shook his head. "I'm not so sure we're the same people anymore."

"Fundamentally, we are." Other-Loki let that sink in for a few seconds. Loki swallowed; he didn't know what to say to that. Why did he feel like such a child compared to this Loki? "Oh, by the way, once I take my leave, you'll be hit by a deluge of my memories."

Other-Loki smirked. "Do try to keep my reputation intact."

He dissolved into the air, as if he hadn't ever been there.

Loki stared for a short moment before he gasped and crumpled to the ground, holding his head in his hands and trying to hold out against the memories that were his but not his at the same time, memories that _could've_ been his given time.

They flashed one after the other, and he longed to grab at them and slow down the ever-flowing river of lost time.

_"And am I not your mother?"_

_"You're not."_

_"I didn't do it for him."_

_"My sons."_

_"Yeah. Perhaps it's best that we don't ever see each other again."_

_"It's what you always wanted."_

_"Your savior is here!"_

_"With the Eternal Flame, you are reborn."_

_"Maybe you're not so bad after all, Brother."_

_"The tesseract or your brother's head. I assume you have a preference."_

_"Alright, stop!"_

_"The sun will shine on us again."_

He curled up on his side, trying to battle through the alarming amount of grief and loss and other emotions he'd gone through in a matter of seconds.

He touched his face, and was surprised to find tears there. (He didn't remember the last time he'd cried.)

He stayed like that for a long time.

* * *

He opened his eyes to see the night sky, to see the stars. He had to rub out the grit that had built up in his eyes. How long had he been asleep?

He rubbed a hand over his face, vaguely registering the dried tears there.

He frowned. Sentiment, that was all. It was sentiment. He thought he'd have a second chance here, he thought...he thought he'd have an actual family here, a world where he hadn't messed up so badly and destroyed everything, pushed people away because _that's just who he was_ , and regret, was that regret speaking? Sentiment _and_ regret? And grief. And loss.

 _Mother._ He looked up at the sky. Was she watching him right now? Was she watching her pathetic excuse for a son wallow in his own tears on a rooftop in a world he didn't belong in?

The last thing he'd said to her...no. The last thing _this_ version of him had said to her...he let out a miserable sob. "I'm sorry," he whispered up, though he didn't really know what he was sorry for, or if he was even apologizing to the right person, because _this_ Frigga was certainly not _his_ Frigga.

He wanted to go back. No, he _needed_ to go back, because the Dark Elves could be attacking Asgard right now and he - he had to go save Amma because if Amma was dead, he didn't know what he'd do. Except he couldn't go back; this had been a one way trip. He couldn't go back, couldn't go and fix things now that he knew a version of him had moved on.

He groaned, burying his face in his hands. He always destroyed everything, didn't he? Asgard wasn't even _here_ anymore, and he couldn't go back to save _his_ Asgard (for reasons unknown to him) because he couldn't even enter that universe as of now, and why had he thought this was a good idea in the first place? Why had he assumed his life would be better here?

His mother was dead (She was surely his mother, right?) and his father was dead and it was all his fault, too. The guilt tore at his heart for some reason and made it hard to breathe, because _he_ hadn't done any of that. _His_ parents (Why had he so quickly accepted them as his parents after so long?) were still alive, oblivious to his turmoil. _His_ parents were, presumably, safe and sound in their palace.

 _This_ Loki had been the one to mess things up. Surely he couldn't blame himself.

But they were the same person, weren't they? If he had stayed in his world, he would've surely messed up, too.

He needed...needed... _Thor_ , a part of him whispered. Thor, who was still alive, but who had a slightly larger form than before (Loki was being kind with that description) and who was still grieving him, still grieving _this_ version of him, and he had ruined that too, hadn't he?

Thor still loved him and still grieved him even after all the times he'd hurt him or supposedly died.

He didn't deserve it, and yet, he still needed his brother. ( _This_ Thor, at least, didn't hate him. He wasn't so sure about _his_ Thor.)

He wanted to leave and go to him, go to wherever he was with those Idiots of the Galaxy, because centuries of instinct had won against a year or two of hate, instincts telling him Thor was _safe._ Thor was _home._ And that, if he just had Thor, everything would be okay again. (Pathetic sentiment.)

He wanted to go to his brother, but what was he supposed to say?

 _Hi, Brother. I haven't actually called you that in a while; it sounds kind of weird in my mouth. Guess what? I'm not dead._ He winced. _Well, I haven't ever been dead, actually. I've just been...I'm - I'm Loki._ Thor would say, _I know_ , with that furrowed brow of his and a perfectly confused expression. Hopefully, he wouldn't be bawling or something (though, from this Loki's memories, he _was_ a huge sentimental oaf, so it was probable). Loki would swallow, looking down at his shoes. He could never really lie to Thor.

 _I'm not_ your _Loki_ , he'd blurt out. _I'm not the Loki you know. I'm from another universe, the one where I escaped with the Tesseract. I'm sorry I'm not your Loki, I really am. Your Loki's got it all together; your Loki seems great. I'm still broken; I'm your brother but from a point in time where I'm still broken. But I'm here, and I'm Loki, and that was enough, sometimes, right? When we were little, and one of us couldn't sleep, just being there was enough, right? I'm not your Loki, but I'm who you have right now; I'm not your Loki, but I am_ a _Loki, and that's enough. That's enough, right?_

_Right?_


	16. A Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's not exactly Loki whump in this chapter...but it's still in here for a reason!

Loki was pretty sure they had done this on purpose.

Scratch that. He was _very_ sure they had done this on purpose.

The Avengers had expanded drastically after Stark had idiotically played with an infinity stone. They hadn't needed everyone on this most recent mission to go invade (yet another) Hydra base.

So, of course, they had left behind him and Barton.

_Of course._

Loki had had this whole day planned out since last night: eat a late breakfast after Clint had long gone off doing whatever, grab a thick book to read and a few snacks, and hide in his room for the rest of the day. A bit cowardly, sure, but the avoidance, in this case, was necessary.

He hadn't expected Clint to eat a late breakfast, too.

Which was why he was now sitting uncomfortably in the kitchen, trying to chew as quietly as he could and ignoring the fact that Clint was leaned against the nearby counter, glaring at him with borderline murderous eyes while chomping on some Eggo waffles.

He stabbed his fork into his own waffles with enough force to break the plate underneath if he had pushed a little harder. (Were waffles really all they had? Stark could live off of coffee alone, but the rest of them...? He really needed to restock his pantries. Or maybe Loki could do it for him and use it as an excuse to avoid Clint for as long as possible.)

The silence was getting to him, and Clint knew it.

He reached for the bottle of maple syrup to add another ungodly (pun totally not intended) amount onto his plate, just as Clint moved to do the same thing.

They stared at one another for three. Long. Seconds. (Not that seconds are ever longer or shorter than normal. They're just seconds. (Loki didn't know why his internal dialogue kept getting off track.))

"You...can have it first," he said. The words felt foreign in his mouth.

Clint gestured at him with his hand. "No no no, go ahead."

"Um, no thank you. Just - just take it." Loki smiled thinly. "I'm really trying here."

"Why don't _you_ take it?" Clint smiled a very fake smile. "Just like you took my free will. Yeah...remember that time you put me under mind control?"

"Gee, yeah. I think I do. I've apologized. What else do you want me to do?" Loki asked, exasperated.

"I don't know. Act like you're sorry?"

"The syrup's all yours, Barton. I think I've had enough." Truthfully, Loki thought he had had enough of the waffles, too. His appetite had shrunk in the last few seconds.

"Nope. It's yours. I'm not touching it until you do."

"No! I insist."

"Just take the goddamn syrup!"

In the end, none of them got the maple syrup.

* * *

"You have got to be kidding me."

Loki stiffened upon hearing Clint's voice behind him, grip tightening on the plastic bags in his hands.

He had actually gone and done something productive after breakfast, and what happened when he was putting the groceries away?

Clint came into the kitchen. They really did have the worst luck.

"Had a great time blowing off steam, Agent Barton?" he asked, trying not to grit his teeth.

"Yeah, yeah." Clint nodded nonchalantly. "Had pictures of your face on all the targets. Hit every single one."

Loki winced, trying not to imagine what that would _really_ feel like. "I can't imagine that arrows would be useful against anything remotely dangerous."

Clint seriously looked like he was trying not to murder him. Which was a pity, really; he'd be free of the archer's begrudging nature if he were dead.

"Look, dude." Loki wasn't sure how to react to being called a 'dude'. "I'm gonna be sitting on that couch playing Mario Kart for the rest of the afternoon. We don't have to have a problem if you just stay out of my sight."

Loki was pretty sure they already had a problem, but decided to ignore it and say, "Deal."

The deal was broken within 30 seconds.

* * *

"What's the problem?" Clint asked into his phone. "Oh, that's bad...uh huh...we're on our way."

"Hey, Loki!" he called. Loki walked into the room from where he had been eavesdropping in the hallway. "Suit up, or whatever. One of our SHIELD bases has been attacked. They need us."

With a nudge of his magic, he had changed into clothes suitable for battle. "Okay, that's not fair," Clint muttered, running to his room.

Soon, they were standing awkwardly in the living room. Loki hadn't even begun to figure out how to work directly with Clint. Before, they had always worked as a full team, and their interactions had always been limited to through others. But now...

He decided to break the silence first. "It can't be a coincidence that Hydra's attacking this base when everyone else is away."

"Yeah." Clint nodded, grim. "Their intel was probably false, then."

"Could it have been a trap?"

"Dunno. We gotta focus on this thing now."

Before Clint could protest, Loki grabbed his arm and teleported them to the SHIELD base.

"What the hell?" Clint stumbled, losing his balance temporarily before righting himself again. He pointed at nothing in particular. "Never do that again."

"Noted." Loki didn't want to give him additional reasons to kill him.

He looked around. The area was in chaos, more chaos than Loki had ever seen when it came to SHIELD, and smoke was pouring out of several holes in the building.

"This base is mainly scientists," Clint said. "On the paperwork, all agents; but practically, just civilians privy to classified information. No field training."

Loki winced. "So no allies?"

"Not yet, at least." He sighed. "Guess I'm stuck with you."

* * *

The fight was well on its way when backup finally arrived. Other SHIELD agents, mind you, not the Avengers, who were across the country.

He fought Hydra agent after Hydra agent, occasionally ushering a scientist out of the way or putting a light shield around any important work he found.

Clint fought beside him, proving that his arrows were, indeed, highly dangerous.

At some point during the fight, Loki was knocked to the ground. Hard. A knee was dug into his back, but he blasted the hostile away and got back up again.

He leaned against the wall to catch a tiny breather. "Watch out!" He was slammed to the ground again, this time by Clint. A bullet dug itself into the wall where his face had been.

Loki's eyes widened. He needed to be less careless. "Thanks," he gasped out, trying not to gape at Clint. (Didn't Clint want him dead?)

He shrugged. "Don't mention it."

And they went off to fight again.

* * *

Loki didn't know how long it had been since the fight had started. Time seemed to have blurred together. Everything looked the same, and he had multiple sore cuts and bruises.

But soon it was over. Or, well, he thought it had been.

"Phil!"

He turned to see Clint running to a badly wounded man on the ground. Loki recognized the man. He was the same one he had supposedly killed three years before. How was he still alive? Was he a twin?

Loki winced. This man surely had more bad luck than him and Clint combined.

"Hey, Phil. Stay with me!" Clint turned, eyes desperate. "We need a medic!"

Loki ran over, looking at the gunshot wound in his chest. He winced, memories coming up of stabbing the man in the same place. Clint was putting pressure on the wound, hands drenched in blood, as he tried to keep the man awake. "Hey, hey. Open your eyes. Come on, Phil."

Loki grimaced. The man wouldn't survive unless he did something. "Move your hands."

"No! He's gonna bleed out. You're just gonna kill him again!"

Loki did nothing to hide his wince. "No, I'm just going to heal him."

Clint seemed to take a deep breath to calm down and think clearly. "Okay, okay." He moved his hands away from the wound, grabbing one of the man's hands instead and squeezing. "But if you kill him..."

Loki nodded. "I know." He pressed his hands down onto the wound, causing it to glow green. He closed his eyes and pushed a little more of his magic into the man's body, causing the bullet still stuck inside to disappear. Then, he began to try to mend the internal damage.

He opened his eyes after what seemed like an eternity, when in reality, had only been a few minutes. He looked down. The man's face was slack now, but the bleeding had lessened and nearly stopped. "He should be stable," Loki said, standing up to move away from the scene.

He leaned against a wall and simply breathed. This had taken a lot out of him, and he was feeling slightly faint. He tried to wipe the sweat off his forehead, but ended up smearing blood on it instead. He tried to still the shaking of his hands when he realized how much of this man's blood was and had been on him.

Footsteps. He opened his eyes (When had he closed them?) to find Clint next to him, looking like - looking like he was seeing a new person.

"Thank you," he said. Loki was taken aback by the sincerity.

He waved his hand vaguely, watching as the man, Phil, was carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. "It's...fine."

"Wanna head back to the tower now?"

Loki raised his eyebrows. "You don't want to go visit him?"

Clint shrugged. "I'm not technically supposed to know he's alive."

"Oh." Loki nodded and tried to understand why. Probably Fury's doing; most definitely Fury's doing. "Okay." He offered a hand out for Clint to grab so they could teleport out of there.

"Oh, no way." Clint put his hands up in the air. "No more teleporting. Besides, you look like you're gonna topple over.

Loki did, in fact, feel like he was going to topple over. "No I'm not."

"Come on, we're taking a car."

* * *

"This measley piece of fabric is supposed to protect me if we crash?"

"Just put your seatbelt on!"

* * *

"I really am sorry," Loki said into the slightly more comfortable silence of the car.

Clint sighed, keeping his eye on the road so Loki wouldn't freak out. (Apparently, the rest of the world's traffic wasn't like this; it was just New York that was this bad.) "I know, it's...been a bit hard to accept it, after..."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, too, y'know. I've been kinda an ass. I gave Wanda a chance but not you. But then you saved Phil, and it just sorta clicked that maybe you're not so bad after all."

"I suppose I'm not very good at showing sincerity in my apologies."

"Oh." Clint snorted. "That's an understatement."

"I really am-"

"Stop apologizing. It's getting annoying." Loki clamped his mouth shut. "Okay, heart-to-heart over. What do you wanna do for the rest of the day?"

"Well, I was planning to read a book..."

" _That's_ boring."

"Well what do you have in mind, then?"

* * *

The other Avengers came back to find no severed body parts, fires, or holes in the walls.

What they _did_ find was Clint and Loki having a knife-throwing competition in the training room. (Loki just might have been losing.)

Natasha smirked, watching the duo taunt each other. "What did I tell you guys?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno, I'm not...too happy with this one. It seems a bit rushed. But please review! Pleeeeease? *puppy dog eyes because they always work*


	17. I Did Not See That Coming

Thor laughed along with the rest of the Avengers. Perhaps this trip hadn't been all bad; he had gotten a new group of close comrades, of friends.

"I'm just glad this is all over," Clint said from his slumped position on Stark's couch. He looked at Thor. "I don't ever want to see your brother, your brother's magic, or your brother's scarily blue eyes ever again."

Thor's smile faded. He didn't want to be reminded of Loki, but for some reason, he felt he had to correct him. "My brother's eyes are green."

The effect was instantaneous, and the mood in the room was immediately dampened. "No, you're - his eyes are blue. I swear his eyes are blue."

Thor frowned. "You must be mistakened. I grew up with him. His eyes are green."

"No, no," Natasha interjected. "I remember seeing his eyes blue, too. I was literally standing three feet in front of him during the interrogation."

"Look, this is a really random detail. Do we really need to discuss this?" Stark asked.

"Yes!" the three of them said at the same time.

"Okay." He raised his hands in surrender.

"But...aren't your eyes blue, Thor?" Bruce asked.

"Well, that doesn't mean much, considering Loki's adopted," Natasha said.

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"His eyes are green," Thor said slowly. "It matches the color of his magic, and the green on his clothing."

"But his eyes are blue!" Clint exclaimed. "It's like the last thing I remember clearly before..." He gestured vaguely at his head.

"Someone's gotta be wrong here," Steve finally interjected. "I'm inclined to agree with Thor."

"You don't have to _incline_ anything, Rogers. I've got security footage." They all turned to Stark. "Jarvis?" he asked, glancing at the ceiling.

A holographic screen turned on in front of them, and Thor watched, numb, as it was revealed that his brother's eyes were blue. A stormy, unnatural blue that was extremely unfamiliar on his face.

"See? Blue," Clint said, proving his point.

"But..." Thor swallowed. "They're green. I would know." Had he really been this blind?

"You know what blue means," Natasha said slowly, sharing a meaningful look with Clint, who looked like he was trying to swallow a hard pill.

"What does it mean?" Thor asked. He didn't like the unknown feeling creeping up his spine.

"Clint's eyes turned blue when be was mind controlled," Bruce said softly.

Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds as they tried to process this information.

Thor stood up suddenly. "Woah. Where are you going?" Steve asked, holding a hand up to halt him.

"To see my brother."

* * *

The whole team stormed into the holding cells, where Loki was currently chained and gagged.

He snapped his eyes open as the door was unlocked, and seemed to glare at the lot of them for disrupting his sleep.

Thor closed his eyes at the sight.

His eyes were a familiar emerald green, shimmering with intelligence, cunningness, mischief, and...apprehension. "See? His eyes are green," Thor said faintly. He didn't like what all of this implied.

Loki's eyes widened with what seemed like surprise. _The witless oaf actually figured it out._ Thor could just hear it.

Clint stepped up beside him, openly gaping at the sight. "No way." Loki rolled his eyes, but Thor knew him well enough to see a hint of guilt.

Stark laughed a little. "Seems Reindeer Games is innocent after all." Thor watched as Loki let his eyes flicker down to his hands in...guilt? Shame?

He itched to reach out and free his brother, but he wasn't sure of much anymore. "What - what are we going to do now? What's going to happen?"

"Well," Natasha said, crossing her arms, "we gotta inform Fury about this. I'm sure he'd want to know." She pursed her lips, looking Loki up and down. Loki narrowed his eyes at her scrutiny. "You should probably free him. If he really is innocent, he shouldn't stay tied up like this."

If possible, Loki's glare intensified. He _is right here_. Thor grimaced. Loki had never liked to be talked over. Or silenced.

"Come on, Clint," Natasha said, walking out of the room. Clint followed after a few more seconds of staring at Loki's eyes (and not in the romantic way).

"Um...yeah. I'm gonna go. There's still a Loki-shaped hole in my floor that I gotta fix...or memorialize. You never know." Stark all but fled the room, leaving Thor, Bruce, and Steve to deal with Loki.

"You might want to check on those cuts," Steve said. Loki stiffened at the mention of his injuries.

"Yeah. I'll - um. I'll go get my stuff." Bruce left the room, presumably to get medical supplies, and Loki seemed to sag, almost in relief. He seemed so _tired_ , Thor noted absently.

"If you wouldn't mind, Captain..." He started.

"Yeah, I'll be right outside the door." And then he left.

Thor waited about half a second before rushing to his brother's side. "Loki!" He unlocked the cuffs and tore the gag away, throwing it onto the ground.

Loki flinched at each sound, and turned away from Thor as soon as he was free. "Loki?"

"Hmm?" Loki asked absently, before furrowing his brows and clearing his throat a little.

"What..." Thor didn't know how to broach the topic. "What happened, Brother? In the void? Who - who controlled you?"

"I'm not your brother, Thor," Loki said softly, still turned away and looking at the wall. He ignored all the other questions.

Thor put a hand on his shoulder. "You are, no matter how many times you deny it. I'm sorry I made you feel undervalued before."

Loki laughed bitterly. "No being in their right mind would want a Frost Giant for a brother."

"Well," Thor shrugged, "you've always called me an idiot before. Now's the time to prove it."

Loki laughed again. It sounded watery. "I still tried to kill you."

"It's fine."

"It's not, not really. And then all this New York stuff..."

"Brother?" Thor asked uncertainly.

Loki turned to him then, and let out a sound that was part-laugh and part-sob. Something in Thor's chest _ached_ at the sight of his brother's face, so close to breaking down. "I don't," he ran a hand through his messy hair, "you all think that because I was mind controlled, I am absolved of all fault. But somewhere, somewhere _in here_ ," he jabbed at his chest. "is something dark and shriveled and filthy, and it wanted to kill you and rule Midgard. _I_ wanted to."

Tears tracked paths down his cheeks, one after the other. Thor was almost entranced by the sight. He sighed, reaching out to wipe them away with a soft touch. "It's okay, Brother. You understand now that this was a poisonous dream. Now you just need to get better."

"How?" Loki inquired.

"Well, for one, tell us who controlled you, what happened in the Void."

Loki stiffened. "I don't think you're ready to hear that," he whispered. _I don't think I'm ready to tell you._

Thor tried to be patient, smiling a small smile and cupping the side of his face like he used to do when they were younger. _It's okay._ "We'll wait. You don't have to do it now."

Loki nodded, ever so hesitantly leaning into his touch. _Thank you._


	18. Panic! At the Disco

He gasped, opening his eyes to see the darkness of his room.

He sat up quickly, back bowed to look at the blurred form of his shaking hands. Tears fell into his blanketed lap, and he blinked.

He was breathing fast. Too fast. His chest was almost heaving.

His hair hung like a curtain around his face, hiding the distress and anguish that must've been shown there.

It was ridiculous. He didn't even remember what he had dreamt about, just that it had propelled him towards this panicked state.

He scrabbled at his chest and arms. He was still here, right? He wasn't - wasn't - wasn't what?

His harsh breaths seemed so loud in the dark of night, seemed to cut into the silence like a gleaming blade. He messily brushed the hair out of his face and closed his eyes, trying to calm his breathing.

It didn't work. (His subconscious would be his undoing.)

He needed to ground himself. In reality, in the present; all the same thing, really.

He stumbled out of bed, not caring about the thudding of his bare feet on the tiled floor. He felt cold as he walked towards the kitchen, but he didn't think it was because of the temperature of the building.

He watched, numb, as the water crawled up the glass. Not quite filling it, but enough. Probably.

He turned off the faucet and brought the glass to his lips. The water was cool, and seemed to ease the tightness in his chest. He breathed through his nose as he drank.

In. Out. In. Out.

Slowly.

How many times had he done this already? How many times had he woken up in the dead of night to his own harsh breathing? How many times had he gone through all of this alone?

How many more times would he have to endure this alone?

He didn't know.

He walked slowly to the couch and sat, bringing his knees up to his chest and laying his left side onto the back of the furniture.

The tears on his face had long since dried (like buried memories), but he didn't muster up the will or strength to wipe them away.

This was fine. Nobody was here to see him. Nobody was here to call him weak. This was fine.

And yet, the silence seemed to encroach on him, bit by bit, until he felt like he couldn't breathe again.

He pressed his forehead into his knees. He needed to - needed to...

He pulled at his hair. Hard. It probably should've been painful, but he could only feel dull tugs. He probably should've been worried that it wasn't painful, but all he could focus on were the four walls around him, entrapping him in the darkness.

It felt so suffocating.

He didn't like suffocating.

Footsteps, Loki registered vaguely. Footsteps padding down the hallway towards him.

(He might've been selfish, but he wanted whoever it was to find him.)

The person stopped next to him.

"Hey." A hand on his shoulder. It was Steve.

"Hey," he echoed absently.

He sighed and sat in front of Loki, moving his hands away from his hair and taking them in his own. "You're fine. You're right here. You're in the tower." Loki nodded shakily, and Steve continued. "Tony's upstairs in his lab, hopefully passed out and drooling on his work. Bruce, Nat, and Clint are in their rooms, probably sleeping. Thor is too, probably - no - _definitely_ snoring the place off."

That caused Loki to laugh a little, but it soon dissolved into sniffles. "You're here. You're safe. We all see you. We're all here for you," Steve said, concerned eyes tracing his form in the dark.

It was weirdly...touching. His voice was soothing to Loki's damaged emotional self.

Loki thought he could breathe again.

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the couch. Steve let go of his hands after one final squeeze, moving to the other side.

And they breathed in the silence. (It didn't feel so empty anymore.)


	19. Broken Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more Heimdall love in this chapter. :) He was sorely underused in the MCU.

Loki was not unfamiliar with loss. He had lost his mother, after all. (His last words to her still haunted him.)

But _this_. This was something different.

He couldn't pinpoint why (he had never been too in touch with his emotions). Well, logically, there was an obvious reason, and it was that Frigga had always seemed to love him more than Odin had.

But...but he still _had_ loved him. He still _tried_ , at least.

It was complicated, his feelings for his adopted father. He didn't like the uncertainty of his emotions, because uncertainty led to fear and loathing, and fear and loathing led to him lashing out at others, and lashing out at others led to him saying particularly stupid things.

So really, it was a wonder that something unfortunate hadn't happened yet on the Asgardian refugee ship.

The quiet weeks before they reached earth had given everyone the opportunity to slow down. Unfortunately, slowing down meant confronting emotions that hadn't been dealt with.

He itched for something to do. Anything. Their landing on Sakaar and subsequent fight with Hela had kept them busy enough.

But now...now, they couldn't ignore the confusing grief that plagued them.

Which was why Thor had sequestered himself in his room, and Loki had found himself standing outside of it like an idiot.

He wanted to come in.

That didn't mean he should.

He raised his hand to knock, but, as before, lowered it and continued staring at the door.

"My prince," Heimdall greeted, walking towards him with raised eyebrows.

"Heimdall," he greeted back, then paused. "You don't have to call me that."

"Yet it is true."

Loki grimaced. "Not really. It makes me sound like Thor's son."

They both pretended that that was the real reason to his dislike of the title.

"What are you doing?" he asked after some uncomfortable silence.

"Watching you stand outside our king's quarters for the past 30 minutes and counting."

Loki sighed. "Very blunt as always."

The gatekeeper nodded solemnly. "It is one of my defining qualities. But you...this uncertainty is not one of yours."

Loki swallowed. "I'm not sure if I should go in or not."

"I'm sure you should. Norns only know what Thor is doing at the moment."

Loki rolled his eyes. " _You_ know."

Heimdall smiled faintly, gold eyes seeing something Loki couldn't. "I suppose so."

He waited a little, compelling Loki to say something more. Loki shrugged. "I... _miss_ Father." The word felt foreign in his mouth. "It's something akin to grief."

"You don't believe you deserve to grieve him."

Loki nodded, turning to face the gatekeeper fully. "I'm the reason he's de-" He swallowed. Why did he feel such guilt? Why had he thought it to be a good idea before?

Heimdall looked at him like he was missing something fundamental. Perhaps he was. "You are his son. If not you, then who will grieve?"

"I don't know, maybe Thor, his real son?" He jerked his thumb in the direction of the door.

"The fact that you were adopted does not make you any less his son," Heimdall said.

"It certainly feels like it, especially when I've done so many things to diminish his love and approval for me."

"But you came back to us in the end. That's what matters."

Loki laughed mirthlessly. "A bit too late."

Heimdall glared at him, which might have been the most emotion Loki had ever seen on his face. "That's not the point here. The point is that Odin was still your father, and you his son. It's not wrong to grieve."

It _felt_ wrong, though. That was the problem. Sometimes, he wished he could control his emotions and make them into something logical.

"If you won't go in for yourself, go in for your brother." Loki swallowed. _Brother_. That was another foreign concept. "He's grieving, just as you are. He's drowning in it. Perhaps sharing your grief will make it easier on the both of you."

Loki's lips thinned as he eyed the door again. "You know I'm right."

He scowled. "Don't act so smug about it."

Heimdall laughed (which was, again, highly unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable because Loki had never seen that much emotion on his face), patted his shoulder, and went off doing whatever he usually did.

Loki turned, raising a hand to knock. He took a deep breath, telling himself to knock. He tensed up, about to knock.

He lowered his hand just a little.

He closed his eyes; it shouldn't be this hard.

He knocked.

No answer.

He hesitantly opened the door. "Thor?" he asked, peeking into the room to find his miserable lump of a brother curled up in bed.

"Loki?" he croaked out, clearing his throat and blinking the grit out of his eyes.

They both ignored the tear tracks on his face.

Loki quietly closed the door behind him and walked towards his brother, sitting by his feet. He glanced at Thor's face, specifically his eye patch. "You look kind of like Father now."

Thor's face nearly crumpled. "Yeah." His voice was hoarse.

"I'm sorry." Loki looked down, fidgeting with his hands.

"What for?"

"Father would still be here if it weren't for me." Something clenched in his gut, and he was afraid to look up and see Thor's expression.

"It wasn't your fault," Thor murmured, taking one of his hands in his and rubbing his thumb over his knuckles.

"But you said-"

"I was wrong."

Loki laughed mirthlessly. "It kinda is my fault, though."

Thor shrugged. "His," a sniffle, "his time had come. It - he was at peace in his last moments. He's with Mother now."

And Loki didn't know how it had turned, how he had come in to help Thor when Thor was helping him instead.

Or perhaps it went both ways. (He didn't know.)

Loki still couldn't bear to look at Thor's face. Thor had never been a skilled liar (that trait belonged to himself), but Loki didn't dare look in case it really _had_ been his fault that their last rock in this upturned world had disappeared.

So he hugged Thor instead (perhaps making up for the one that hadn't happened before). He buried his face in Thor's neck and let the grief overwhelm him as it probably should've before. Thor hugged him back just as tightly as they laid down, forming a huge tangle of limbs and blankets on the small bed, but they made it work.

"It's okay to grieve," Thor said into the room.

"It's okay to cry," Loki whispered back.

And cry he did.


	20. Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Thor Loki. Actually, pre-MCU Loki + a young Peter, 'cause why not?

"Heimdall!" he screamed into the sky. Oh, he was going to _kill_ that gatekeeper when he came back. "Heimdall!"

He growled in frustration, stomping on the ground once before he realized how unprincely it was.

"Bring me back, Heimdall!"

"I'm sorry, my prince, but you need to get out of the library more," came Heimdall's voice in his head.

"And you thought it was a good idea to send me to Midgard?!" He could just _see_ Heimdall's gleeful expression. Or...maybe not gleeful expression, seeing as his face never really expressed anything.

"Yes. I'll send you back after you've done something substantial." And that was that.

Loki huffed and looked around. He was surrounded by trees. Normal enough, he supposed.

He used his magic to change into a dark green buttoned-up shirt with black dress pants, clothing more suitable for this realm. Midgard. _Of course_ it had to be Midgard.

He couldn't have chosen Vanaheim or Nidavellir. No! It had to be Midgard. He was a fish out of water here.

He trudged out from the blanket of trees with a frown set firmly in place...to find multiple buildings towering over him. Strange. Perhaps Midgard had advanced somewhat since the last time he was here, a mere 200 years ago. They certainly had interesting tastes in architecture.

He walked out of the area of nature, a 'park', towards the people walking and talking and driving in the streets. The last part was something he didn't really understand, bulky pieces of metal and all, but he took it in stride and walked leisurely on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and watching everything around him.

Well, apparently not _everything_ , because in the next second, something knocked into his legs. He looked down, eyes widening as he watched the child that had walked into him steady himself. He couldn't be more than five or six.

"Sorry, Mister. I'm so sorry," he said hurriedly, looking up at him with slightly panicked eyes.

"It's...it's fine, child." Oh, he was so not equipped to deal with little ones, especially _Midgardian_ little ones. They were just so fragile.

"Where are your parents?" he asked curiously. He didn't see anyone looking for the boy.

His face crumpled, and he sniffed, tears starting to form in his eyes. "My mom and dad d-died last year. They're in Heaven now."

Oh. Heaven was like their version of Valhalla, right? He paused. _Oh._

"I'm sorry for your loss, child." It sounded empty.

"It's - it's okay," he said, swiping his tears away with the backs of his hands.

"Who's taking care of you, then?" he asked, gaining the sudden urge to get rid of the child because he had no idea how to deal with the ones in Asgard, let alone one going through this much grief at such a young age.

"M-my Uncle Ben and Aunt May."

"Where are they?"

"I dunno," the boy sobbed out. "I got lost."

Oh. This was going to be harder than he expected.

"Do you have a phone, Mister? I 'member their numbers."

Loki grimaced. "I...do not."

"Oh." The boy looked at him with an admittedly adorable look of confusion. "Who _doesn't_ have a phone?"

"Me, and evidently, you."

The boy pouted and looked down at his feet, which was definitely fine by Loki because his goggling up at him had been making him uncomfortable.

"What's your name, child?"

The boy smiled. "Peter Parker. What's yours?"

Oh. He hadn't expected him to ask that. "Loki Odinson." He hoped it wasn't too suspicious of a name.

"That's a nice name," the boy mumbled, looking up at his tall stature again and probably hurting his neck doing so.

"Thank you," he said back. The boy - _Peter_ \- was still staring up at him. Was...was he supposed to say something more?

Loathe to admit it, he _was_ in sore need of something to quell his boredom, and the child _did_ look quite pathetic and miserable at the moment, so he did the only sensible thing: "I will take you back home, Peter."

Happiness lit the boy's face like the sun. "Thank you! Thank you so much, Mr. Odinson!"

Loki winced. The name sounded too stiff. "Just call me Loki, child."

"Okay, Mr. Loki!"

"No - that's not - I-" He sighed, rubbing his forehead with a weary hand.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

They were walking together along the sidewalk now. Loki had bought Peter some ice cream because he had gotten agitated, and now he was nearly skipping around because of all the sugar. Loki hoped this didn't count as child endangerment or abduction or anything. Had this child learned anything about talking to strangers? He seemed so...comfortable around Loki, a feat only few could claim.

He was leading them towards the child's apartment via a well-hidden tracking spell while Peter spewed out whatever was on his mind. He was a talker, that one, and a fast one at that.

"Mr. Loki?" he asked, looking up to meet his eyes.

"Yes?"

"Are you British?"

Loki had no idea what being 'British' meant. "Sure."

"Oh." Peter paused, then beamed. "Okay!" He then proceeded to do a frankly horrible imitation of his accent.

"Mr. Loki?"

Loki sighed. "Yes?"

"What's your job?"

Loki blinked. "Uh...my profession is..."

"You sound smart. Are you a doctor?"

"...Yes."

"Cool!"

A few seconds passed. "Mr. Loki?"

"Yes?" Loki asked, exasperated.

"If you're a doctor, does that mean I have to call you Dr. Loki? 'Cause some people get mad if you don't." He had a surprisingly thoughtful and considerate look on his face, especially for his age.

"You don't have to call me that."

"Okay. That's good." He skipped around a little before coming slowly back to Loki.

"Mr. Loki?" he asked almost hesitantly.

Loki was instantly aware that the conversation would take a more serious turn. "Yes, child."

"Do you think my parents are in Heaven?"

That gave Loki pause. He considered the question, giving it much thought because the child was looking at him with a painfully hopeful face. "Yes," he said finally. "They were good people, were they not?"

Peter nodded solemnly, much too solemnly for a child his age. "I think they were. How do you know?"

Loki smiled. "Well they raised you, didn't they?"

Peter giggled, took his hand, and continued walking, swinging their hands back and forth. Loki stared at their joined hands with wide eyes for a few seconds before accepting his fate.

They stayed in comfortable silence, immersed in the world around them.

"Mr. Loki?" he asked, stopping suddenly.

"Yes?"

"Is that place burning?"

Loki looked. It was, in fact, on fire. "It appears so." Probably some idiot who had left their cooking appliance on.

He wrapped his own form around Peter as an explosion rocked the street, causing the windows all around them to shatter.

Okay. Maybe a bit more serious than that.

They could hear the screams coming from the people trapped inside. Loki put his hands on Peter's shoulders, trying to steer him away from the scene.

"No! Mr. Loki! You have to save them!" Peter insisted.

Loki stared. Was he serious?

"There's people inside! You have to help! Please, Mr. Loki?" Peter pouted, and oh, it was _so hard_ to say no to that face.

He sighed, glancing at the burning building again. It was the right thing to do (though Loki had never been known to do the right thing).

He glanced back at Peter, at his pleading face, and hesitated. He couldn't leave the child out here alone, could he?

"Go, Mr. Loki. I'll be fine. They need your help." His eyes were just so _sad_ , and so _innocent_.

He grimaced. "Fine. I'll do it."

That child was going to be the death of him.

* * *

It was ridiculous.

Utterly ridiculous.

He'd always known he'd had a low tolerance for heat, but it was so much more prominent now, with him running through a burning building to save people at the whims of a little child.

"Come on, come on," he croaked, ushering people out. There was so much smoke; it was getting hard to breathe.

He kept the flames at bay with tiny strands of his magic. He didn't think magic existed on Midgard, and it probably wouldn't do to introduce it now.

He crouched next to a table. "You're fine," he murmured to the child underneath. The child crawled out hesitantly and wrapped his arms around Loki's neck.

Loki felt slightly uncomfortable, but stood up anyways, carrying the child to safety. (And if he pressed a light layer of healing magic around the worst of his burns, well...nobody needed to know.)

He went back inside as soon as the child had been set down on the pavement. His magic still sensed someone in the upper floors. He used his magic to teleport there instead of risking the stairs, and his eyes immediately teared up at the intense smoke there.

He coughed. It was like breathing in shards of diamonds.

He sent his magic out again, searching and searching until...there! A young woman was trapped under a fallen beam. "Help!" she rasped out.

He rushed over, pushing the large beam off her with relative ease (he hoped she was out of it enough to not remember). He was about to reach down and scoop her up when he felt the flames lick at his back.

He swallowed back a scream, and turned around, using his magic to push it away (he also hoped she didn't remember this, either). It wasn't without serious burns, though, and he swallowed. Damn his sensitive skin; Asgardians normally didn't burn so easily.

He turned back to the woman on the ground, now unconscious, and picked her up. Then, he teleported them back downstairs, vision growing a bit blurry, and set her down outside. Paramedics immediately swarmed her, and there was just enough chaos for him to slip to a nearby alley unnoticed (he thrived in chaos, after all).

He sat heavily by the brick wall, leaning back against it and just trying to breathe. Why was it so hard?

He could see Midgardians in yellow clothing shooting water at the flames. They'd extinguish nicely. He could see the crowd gathering outside the building. They would soon move on.

He could see his own red and blistered and agitated skin, could feel the sweat pouring down his face. Not so good.

He grimaced. The rough wall behind him was agitating the burns on his back, and his breaths were grating on his lungs and throat.

He could just imagine Thor right now, complaining about how he was so _weak_ and _it's just a few burns, Loki_.

"Mr. Loki!" Oh, the child.

He cracked his eyes open to find Peter running towards him, eyes concerned. "You need to go to a hospital!"

"It's-" He winced. "It's fine."

"No it's not. Your hurt!"

He cleared his throat and ached for some water. "I'm a doctor, remember? I'll heal myself."

"Oh." Peter nodded. It seemed to make sense to him. "Okay." Loki marveled at the amount of trust the child had in him.

Loki flexed his hands and watched Peter's eyes widen as green tendrils of magic surrounded him, healing and soothing his burns. They were still sore, but at least they weren't so bad anymore.

"Woah!" Peter exclaimed. "How'd you do that, Mr. Loki?"

Loki laughed, but immediately started coughing. Small hands awkwardly patted his back. "Magic," he said once he could, wiggling his fingers in a decidedly idiotic manner.

"That's so cool," Peter said, eyes alight with curiosity and adoration. Ah. Loki could do a little more with the latter.

"But it's our little secret, okay?" he asked, ruffling the child's hair.

Peter giggled.

* * *

After Loki had cleaned up, changing into undamaged clothes and no longer smelling like smoke (all with magic, obviously), he and Peter continued their long walk home.

The child had gotten tired halfway through, so he was now perched in Loki's arms, small arms around his neck and head laying on his shoulder. (It made Loki feel a bit warm inside.)

He eventually reached the door to the apartment. "Is this it?" he asked, and Peter perked up.

"Yep!"

He knocked, and the door opened for Loki to see a man and a woman, both with dark brown hair and both looking extremely worried and stressed.

The worry and stress immediately dissipated as soon as they saw who it was. "Peter!" the woman exclaimed, holding her hands out to him.

"Aunt May!" He happily wrapped his arms around her neck and let her carry him back to the safety of their apartment. Well, the doorway to their apartment, anyways.

"Hey, buddy," the man said, ruffling the boy's hair with a fond smile. Loki vaguely remembered doing the same thing earlier.

"Uncle Ben!" Peter exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I got lost and it was kinda scary, but I found Mr. Loki and Mr. Loki was nice and he got me ice cream and-"

"Woah, woah. Slow down, buddy," Uncle Ben said.

Aunt May laughed. "Sounds like you had fun." She turned her attention to Loki then, who was standing awkwardly in the hallway. "Thank you so much. We were about to call the police when you came."

Loki shrugged. "It's nothing."

"Oh, it's definitely something! Who would drink all the Capri-Sun if Peter wasn't here?" Uncle Ben asked, succeeding in tearing giggles from the child. "But thank you," he said sincerely.

"You're welcome," Loki said automatically. He wasn't one who received thanks easily.

"I trust he wasn't much trouble?" Aunt May asked, pushing some of Peter's hair out of his face.

Loki smiled. "None at all." Well, aside from the fire part.

"Good. That's good." She smiled down at her nephew.

"I - um - I better be going," he said.

"Thank you again," she said, and her husband nodded behind her.

"As I said before, it was no problem."

"Bye, Mr. Loki!" Peter called with a wave.

Loki smiled and waved back. (How could he not?) "Goodbye, Peter."

* * *

"Don't you dare say a word," Loki growled once he got back to Asgard.

The gatekeeper smiled. It was infuriating. "I wasn't going to."

* * *

And years later, when he next went back to Midgard for entirely different reasons, he couldn't shake off the feeling that Peter would be disappointed in him.

If, Loki thought, he were to succeed in taking over Midgard (which was unlikely, a buried part of him said), then he'd spare the child.

Yes.

He'd spare the child.

Perhaps he still had a smidge of humanity left.

Perhaps this smidge of humanity would be enough to save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh. Now I have this mental image of Loki carrying a little Peter in his arms. I'm nearly dying of the cuteness overload. I mean, can you see it?
> 
> (I think it's headcanon now that Loki's good with children even though he doesn't think so.)
> 
> My dying-of-cuteness self would greatly appreciate reviews for healing, and thanks all of you for reading.


	21. I Don't Feel So Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's really the Whumptober people's fault for putting a phrase so close to that phrase from IW. Actually, it's probably Peter's fault for saying that phrase from IW. Like, Tony probably would've outlawed it had he had the chance. It's totally not my fault. (It's definitely my fault.)

Thanos had done it. He'd won.

Thor watched forlornly at the spot he had previously occupied, Stormbreaker a heavy weight in his hand.

Nobody spoke, almost afraid to breach the veil of silence that had surrounded them.

Because that would make it real.

And it couldn't be real. They were heroes, they - they couldn't _lose_.

Seconds passed by like hours before the screams started. Thor turned around abruptly, the sound of his shuffling shoes loud in his ears, to find his companions in various states of shock and horror.

Some had vanished, dissipating into dust.

"Loki?" he whispered, not daring to call out, not daring to _know_.

"I'm sorry, Thor." He turned around again to find Loki standing in front of him, as unsure as he had ever seen him. A bit of fear glinted in his eyes.

"What..." Thor trailed off, voice dying, as he registered the small particles of his brother floating off of him and away, like leaves blowing in the wind. He was disappearing more slowly than the others, and Thor realized that he must've been using his magic to slow down his death.

But even Loki couldn't stop the might of the infinity stones for long.

"No," he croaked out, tears coming unbidden in his eyes. "No no no no no." He reached out, grabbing Loki's shoulders as if he could keep him here with the bare might of his hands.

Loki let him.

"I'm sorry," he repeated softly, ignoring the parts of him that were dissipating into dust.

"No. No." Thor shook his head. "You did nothing wrong. This isn't on you, it's on me."

Loki smiled bitterly. "You oaf, we all did our best. It was inevitable, really. If there's any fault, it lies on all of us equally. Don't blame yourself."

"But..." Thor swallowed. He couldn't do this. He couldn't watch his brother die...again.

"It's okay, Thor." That phrase was like taking a dagger, stabbing it in Thor's heart, and twisting it for good measure. Norns, how did Loki seem so _calm_ about all of this?

"Death is-" He swallowed. "Death is an old friend. I should've died many times already."

"That doesn't mean your time is up now." Thor chose not to believe it.

"But it is, for me and for half of the universe. It's..." He blew out a breath. "It's not the worst way to go."

"I don't want you to," Thor croaked out.

Loki nodded sadly. "I know you don't." He looked numbly at his left fingers, which were slowly turning to dust. "I don't either." He looked at Thor, slightly panicked.

And Thor had to be the older brother, had to be the one to let him go. He wrapped Loki in a hug first, though, and Loki did the same to the best of his ability.

"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly, supporting Loki more and more as his feet started to disintegrate.

"A little," Loki murmured. "A bit nauseating, but not overly painful. It's just...death."

He was growing tired. Thor could see it. His magic growing strained as it tried to stretch out the time they had left.

Thor couldn't do that to him in his last moments.

"It's okay," he said, repeating Loki's earlier statement. "It's okay." He swayed them back and forth.

"You can go. Mother and Father will greet you when you next wake." He pressed a kiss into Loki's hair and tried to stall his sobbing.

Loki smiled. Perhaps that was the assurance he had been waiting for. He tilted his head slightly and whispered into Thor's ear. "The sun will shine on us again."

And then he let himself go.

Thor looked numbly at the pile of dust that had been his brother. It coated his arms and shoulders, his clothing and face, his hair and shoes.

He swallowed. This had been Loki. This had been his _little brother_.

He vaguely registered the grief-filled cries of others, but couldn't move from his position, afraid to knock what was left of his brother onto the hard, unforgiving ground below.

There wasn't a body. There was _never_ a body, whenever Thor lost him.

_But he would always come back._

Not this time. He shook his head.

Not this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that this will maybe be the last time Loki dies in this fic. Maybe. Actually, if we're going w/ what happens in Endgame, he's gonna be alive, so no worries! Also, I really like the theory where all of them were actually in the soul stone for those five years. I really like that theory. So maybe he's not really dead here. Idk. I'm just rambling.


	22. Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place way before anything in the MCU. Loki's maybe...15? 16? In human years.

Why...why was everything so blurry? It had been fine a second ago.

Hadn't it?

He wasn't sure.

He leaned heavily against the wall mere hallways away from his room, his breath coming out in ragged bursts. It shouldn't have been this hard to _breathe_.

He choked on a breath, bringing his hand to his mouth as he coughed.

He looked down.

It was red.

Well _that_ wasn't supposed to happen.

He slid down the wall and coughed more harshly. Red specks splattered the white tile, and he stared for a bit, entranced.

They almost looked like apples in his unreliable vision.

He snorted. (Why was it so hard to breathe?) Apples? Where had that come from? He was likely becoming delirious.

Or maybe the fact that he was aware of it meant he wasn't delirious.

Or maybe...maybe maybe maybe...

He frowned. How... _oh_. Poisoned, probably, from the dinner he'd eaten 20 minutes ago. Perhaps by a servant?

Blood continued to leak out of his mouth as he sat miserably. (He was afraid he'd pass out if he stood.) He wiped away some of the blood that had trickled to his chin with the back of his hand.

And then his breath quickened, because dinner had been with Mother and Father and Thor. And that meant they could be poisoned, too. They could be _dying_ , too.

He paused. _He_ was dying. He'd never taken the time to confront his own mortality before.

It caused goosebumps to crawl up his spine, and before he knew it, he was bent over, vomiting into the space beside him.

He grimaced, looking at the mess. Full of not-quite-digested food, and tinged with blood.

So much blood.

It contrasted nicely with all the white in the palace.

But...Mother, and Father! Thor?!

He put a hand to the wall to try and stand, but the world tilted dangerously and he stilled, nearly sobbing at the disorientation of it all.

His family might be in trouble, damn it, and he couldn't do a single thing to save them.

Everything was getting too much _too much_ , and it was just so hard to simply breathe and his vision was getting blurry whether due to tears or dizziness or...or...

"Loki!"

Loki. That was _his_ name, right?

Someone - Thor - was coming towards him, kneeling down in front of him, saying something he couldn't hear, because Thor was alive! Thor was safe! And maybe it had only been him who was poisoned.

He coughed again, splattering his brother's clothes with red. Red. Thor's cape was red.

Hands on his shoulders. "Loki?"

"Tho-" He coughed some more, eyes shutting tightly at the intensity of it.

"It's okay, it's okay." Thor patted his back. Loki leaned his forehead onto Thor's cool chest and just tried to breathe. "I'll get you to the healers, Brother. Just stay with me, okay?"

And then he was scooped up into strong and safe arms. The ceiling passed by so quickly, and he was being shaken, but all he could focus on was why Thor's head was bobbing in and out of his vision.

He coughed again, blood dribbling out of his mouth, and Thor seemed to look down, eyebrows furrowed.

"Stay awake, Brother."

Loki, always the stubborn one, did the exact opposite and welcomed the darkness.

* * *

Someone was stroking his hair and his face. It felt nice.

His eyes fluttered open, and the hands stilled. He whined a little, and they continued.

"Loki?" a soft voice asked.

"Amma," he greeted with a faint smile, still trying to escape the grasps of unconsciousness.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, cupping his face gently with her hands.

"Tired," he murmured, leaning into her touch.

She laughed. It sounded like chiming bells. "I can imagine." The mirth faded out of her face, and she pressed the back of her hand against his forehead for a moment.

"Your fever has broken."

"That's good...what happened?"

She sighed. "Someone hired a servant to poison you. We're still trying to figure out who."

"You're all okay?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yes, my beautiful boy, we're all okay."

He scrunched up his face. " _Mother_."

She laughed. He liked to make her laugh. "Okay. What about 'my fierce warrior son'?"

"That's Thor."

"My smart and mischievous son, then."

"Better," he admitted.

She seemed to smile fondly down at him, leaning down to press a delicate kiss onto his forehead.

He didn't think he'd ever felt more safe.


	23. What's a Whumpee Gotta Do to Sleep Here?

He traced patterns into the glass, hopefully not smudging it enough for Stark to notice.

It was peaceful, this late at night.

They were far enough up that even the sounds of traffic faded into the distance. Nobody else was awake to bother him with their incessant talking.

It was nice. Tiring, a bit numbing, but nice.

He sat on the floor, leaning against the corner of the room, the junction between a wall of neutral paint and a wall of windows. Lights shone dimly in the other buildings he saw, probably for security measures.

But it was pretty much just him, sitting at the top of the world like this. (Not literally, but still plausible.)

It gave his thoughts time to organize, time to quiet. Unlike usually, he didn't have to force them to do so because they did it themselves when he was this tired.

Tiredness was a feeling he'd begun to accept.

Footsteps padded towards him in the near-quiet of the building.

He grimaced internally. Another being to interrupt the little sanctuary he had created for himself.

He didn't turn, for the footsteps had told him who it was.

They stopped. "Can't sleep?" Bruce asked, lowering himself next to him and rubbing some of the grit from his eyes.

Loki shook his head. He didn't feel like talking.

"Well, that's fine. Just...when's the last time you've had a good night's rest?"

Loki almost snorted. The concept was foreign to him. "I don't remember," he said softly, looking at their reflections rather than at Bruce himself.

"You should still try, though. We all don't get enough sleep as it is."

"You should be asleep, too." It was barely a whisper, a half-hearted attempt to push the man away and steer the conversation into less vulnerable territory.

"I know. Friday kinda tattles on you, though. Says you've been up for the last four days."

Loki looked up at the ceiling, a glare barely making its way onto his features. Norns, he was so tired, and so numb, but it was better than the alternative.

"I try, sometimes. Used to. I've given up on sleep long ago."

"That's not exactly healthy," Bruce said, mildly concerned.

"But sleep brings nightmares. Memories or fantasies or both, I know not. I inevitably find myself here after waking up."

Bruce nodded in understanding. "...It's pretty quiet here. A change of pace from what goes on in the day."

Loki nodded. "I suppose," he murmured.

"You've gotta let yourself rest, though. Tiring yourself out isn't gonna do you any good."

He was trying to convince him to go to sleep, which was bad, so bad, because when he closed his eyes...

Loki sighed. "Maybe tonight."

They both knew it was a lie. (It was alarming how the others could read him like a book now.)

Bruce clasped Loki's shoulder anyways. It seemed too rough for the softness and numbness the night had enveloped him in. "Night, Loki."

He stood up, leaving the room, pausing a few times to see if Loki would follow.

He wouldn't.

"Goodnight, Bruce."

The man smiled mirthlessly, padding off to bed, padding away from, really, a lost cause.

* * *

He found himself on the roof sometime later.

He lay down, hands behind his head, looking up at the stars and basking in the cool breeze.

The fresh air was sorely needed to clear his mind.

He breathed, chest going up and down, simply existing in the world.

He stayed up for days at a time, just to get this feeling of numbness.

Because numb meant no fear or sadness or horror or anything. It meant bliss. It meant peace. It meant gazing up at the night sky in Midgard to see how the stars were different here.

It meant silently sneaking through the tower, his breaths the only thing he could hear.

It meant drinking glasses of water in the moonlight.

It meant tracing the walls of the hallways he walked through.

It meant flipping through books, devouring words like candy.

It meant blinking slowly out the windows as if he'd find all the answers to life there.

It made him tired, a bone deep exhaustion; but it also made him feel invincible. It made him feel soft and numb, but hard as steel. An oxymoron for sure, but one he thought he didn't mind.

And when he'd inevitably succumb to the hands of sleep, the monsters in the darkness wouldn't seem so scary, their claws so sharp.

Then he'd wake up and do it all over again.

A cycle he was trapped in until he didn't hurt so much anymore.

That could be a while.

But for now, _for now_ , he was content to stay like this, a mere being, a mere leaf or piece of bark on the branches of Yggdrasil.

Existing, not exactly living.

But still Loki, even if the sleeplessness masked him from view sometimes.


	24. You’re Not Making Any Sense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-Infinity War and Endgame where...yep! Everyone makes it out without any lasting consequences. And yes, Tony still has his arm.

Thor was trying not to panic, but failing miserably.

Loki was trying not to panic, but failing even more miserably.

And Tony. Well, Tony was somehow the one not panicking. But that didn't mean he didn't have to swallow down bile at the sight that greeted them.

"Come on. Let's go. We gotta get out of here," he urged the two brothers, one of whom was nearly crying for the other, and the other of whom was barely conscious to hear him. (Guess who was who.)

And so they ran.

They ran out of this dark hellhole towards their spaceship (yes, they had a spaceship now). They ran towards the others, who almost choked at the sight. They ran and Tony swore - _swore_ \- that these Chitauri who were somehow still alive wouldn't see it coming. They wouldn't see _anything_ coming when Tony and Thor and the others finally got to them.

Because Loki's lips were sewn shut.

* * *

It was weird, this protectiveness he had over the trickster, the anti-hero, their former enemy. (Maybe it was because they had gone through the same thing.)

He remembered skimming through Norse myths sometime after the Invasion of New York. It had only taken him a few minutes to figure out that everything was fucked up in them.

But he _did_ remember this one particular tale, where Loki lost a bet or something and got his mouth sewn shut.

To see that myth come to fruition just made him sick.

He watched as Loki was set down, leaning against Thor, watched as Bruce got out a small blade and Loki flinched, watched as Bruce offered the sharp object to Strange, who frowned but held it in his shaking hands.

There were other injuries (broken bones and bruises and cuts) that they could treat. But this one...

Bruce turned his large green head over towards the rest of them, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space, and met his eyes. "Tony, we need your hands."

He complied quickly, going towards the group of four (five if you included Strange's cloak, draped over Loki protectively) and taking the blade Strange offered him.

He glanced at Loki for a second, noticing the way his breaths came ragged through his nose, the way his hair messily framed his face when it was usually so neat and impeccable, the way blood dripped down his chin from the holes in his lips, the way he clutched Thor's hands like a lifeline, and the way his mouth trembled, straining against the stitches in pain.

He'd have to fix that.

"Hey, Reindeer Games," he said as calmly as his voice would allow.

Loki's red-rimmed and pain filled eyes seemed to widen at the sight of him.

"Hey, don't look at me like that." He held up his hands. "Steady hands, remember? From all the tinkering. Even more trustworthy than a doctor's, if I do say so myself."

"Only more than mine," Strange muttered, lifting his cloak to treat any injuries on Loki's legs. Bruce just stood there awkwardly as the problems with becoming Smart-Hulk became evidently clear.

Loki was still staring at him warily, breathing quickly through his nose as he tried to push down the panic.

Tony grimaced. Right. He needed to fix that.

"Y'know, Lokes? You kinda missed something big, getting kidnapped and all," he started, hesitantly bringing his hands (and the blade) up to Loki's mouth.

Loki tilted his head just a tiny bit. _What?_

"Pepper's pregnant."

Tony looked up from trying to figure out how and where to start to see Loki's eyebrows raised. It took him a few seconds to decipher what he was saying.

He scoffed, bringing his bladeless hand to his chest. "Of course it's mine!"

Loki shook with suppressed laughter as he tried not to pull on the crude stitches in his mouth, and Tony had to smile along. That was an improvement, at least.

"Ha ha, very funny." He brought his hands back to Loki's mouth as Loki stilled, closing his eyes and trying to slow down his breathing.

"That's it. Stay still," he muttered, slicing the blade carefully through the first bloody stitch.

"We're gonna name the baby Morgan," Tony continued. He could feel Loki's rapt attention on him. "It's a unisex name, so it won't matter if it's a girl or a boy. I don't want to argue with a hormonal Pepper last minute about names. She'd win, of course. So we decided already."

As he cut through more stitches, carefully trying to avoid nicking his lips, he noticed Thor's grip around Loki tighten just a little. Less of a hug and more of a restraint. That gave him some pause. It seemed almost practiced, and if Thor's tired and mournful face was any indication, maybe the myth hadn't been a myth after all.

Not that Tony'd ever find out. He was too scared to ask, to _know_.

"Morgan's gonna be my best qualities and Pep's best qualities mixed in one. Scary, isn't it?" Loki gave him the look that usually accompanied a smirk. _Kind of, yeah._

"But that means Morgan's going to be the best of us. The only problem with that is...I don't know how to raise a child! They're just so fragile, and I'll break them, and-"

Loki nudged him a little with his foot. _Don't be silly. You're gonna be a great father._

And had the world ended without him knowing? 'Cause Tony was currently spewing his insecurities about fatherhood to the guy who attacked New York, and the same guy who attacked New York was assuring him that he wouldn't fail.

He smirked, then frowned. "Hey, don't - don't do that. I'm only halfway done. Close your mouth so I can do the rest." Loki listened to him and closed his mouth in resignation. Blood dripped from the crude holes in his mouth and onto Strange's cloak below. It didn't seem to mind.

He sighed, continuing with the delicate task. "It'll be the Avengers' new mission: taking care of Tony Stark's kid." Loki raised his eyebrows again. He seemed calmer; that was good. "No, I don't mean Peter."

Rhodey chuckled from somewhere behind him. "Shut up, Mama Bear!"

He cut another stitch. "Pep's gonna do most of the work, but I'm gonna raise my child, and you all are gonna help me." Strange's cloak perked up a little. "Yeah, you too, Cloaky."

They were all listening now; it wasn't just for Loki, whose blood was all over the floor and his clothes and Strange's cloak and Tony's hands. "Morgan's gonna have a whole gaggle of aunts and uncles...and a brother." Not that Peter was here right now, or knew they were here. Tony would never let him go to space again, and not just because Aunt May would kill him.

He laughed. "I can just see it. Us superheroes trying to wrangle a crazy little child, drawing straws to find out who changes the diapers. It'll be like...like one huge family." He paused. "We _are_ one huge family. We fight together and we lose together. We'll raise a child together, too. It-" He chuckled a little. "It'll be amazing."

Loki seemed entranced in the impromptu speech he had laid out. He was still in pain, but it had...lessened, since. That was nice.

But he seemed to snap out of it as Tony cut the last stitch and began pulling the bloody threads out. He gave Tony a sad sort of look. "Of course that includes you. Who's gonna teach him or her the art of mischief?"

Loki shook his head, and Tony paused a little, trying to decipher what he was saying. He lifted a broken finger to point at himself. _Do you actually trust me to do this?_

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I do. Doesn't matter what you did; that's in the past. You're a good guy now. You're with _us_ now. You'll be living proof to Morgan that people can be better if they want to. You just better turn down those charms of yours because Happy would not be so happy if he wasn't the favorite uncle."

Loki chuckled, finally free, but then winced, blood trickling out of his many wounds. "Here." He pressed a bunch of gauze to his lips. "Don't talk."

Loki glared. "You can talk later. Now you have to heal so you can go see my kid." He glared some more. "I _know_ it takes months for a baby to be born, doesn't mean you can't start healing now." He continued to glare, but before Tony could say anything, he was smacked in the face by Strange's cloak.

"Thanks, Cloaky. The stubborn bastard." He looked at Loki's face again. His eyes were alight with...happiness, acceptance. He patted his shoulder. "Get better, Lokes."

And then he went back to the others, giving them some space. He watched Loki lean back against Thor, watched Thor lean his cheek against his brother's head, watched Loki close his eyes against the pain and (hopefully) fall asleep.

He wiped his hands with a towel, watching it stain with blood ( _Loki's_ blood). He leaned back against the wall, sharing a faint smile with Steve. He tried to breathe, because they were all safe.

When Thor had brought Loki back to earth all those months ago, during all the chaos surrounding Thanos, there was distrust and wariness. But, at second glance, they recognized a brokenness and a sadness and an emptiness in his eyes.

They had given him the opportunity to become better, to become part of a _team_.

Which was why everyone had gone to save him today. Well, everyone except for those plucky Guardians and Peter (who may or may not have been kept out of the loop due to his midterms).

It was weird. They couldn't have imagined him a part of their team back then, but now they couldn't imagine him _not_ being a part of their team.

Scratch that. Their _family_.


	25. I Think I’ll Just Collapse Right Here

Loki was walking in the tower beside Peter, who was rambling about one thing or another. (It was honestly kind of endearing.)

It should've been safe. They should've been safe.

But his sedir sensed something - some _one_ \- lurking in the next corridor, and he watched Peter stiffen out of the corner of his eye.

He probably hadn't been thinking too clearly, 'cause his first instinct had been to push Peter out of the way and _not_ put up a shield to protect them both. Peter was also trying to push him away, and somewhere in their mad dash to save the other, a loud _bang_ sounded in the hallway, and Loki felt a sharp pain in his chest before the world tipped and he fell against a wall, steadying himself with an unsteady hand.

His vision was starting to blur, and it was sooner rather than later that his legs gave out and he was left in an undignified heap on the ground.

He vaguely registered hot blood gushing from his wound.

It was funny how a bullet, a small piece of metal, seemed so inconsequential at most times, but at high velocities became a deadly weapon for humankind. Possibly their most violent advancement. It was similar to his sedir, he supposed. Most of Asgard would probably shame the gun as a coward's weapon.

But he admitted that it was effective; it _hurt_ , damn it. And that tiny piece of metal was still in his body, making it hard to breathe.

He vaguely registered Friday raising an alarm, calling for help, vaguely registered Peter fighting the intruder, managing to web him up with a shaky quip. The fact that a _child_ had had to fight for him would usually have been humiliating, but right now, he could hardly stay conscious.

"Hey, Mr. Loki." Peter was above him, pushing on his wound. Hard. He moaned a little. "I'm sorry. So sorry. We gotta - gotta keep pressure on it, right? Keep the blood in? I'm not sure if that's how it works. Stay awake, Mr. Loki. You gotta stay awake." But his eyelids were so heavy. "Mr. Loki, please! You can't die! Don't die!"

He was on the verge of panicking now, and that just about broke Loki's not-so-cold heart because it was over _him_. He gripped Peter's fingers tightly before succumbing to the beckoning darkness.

* * *

His breath caught a little in his throat as he opened his eyes.

_What...where...?_

He tilted his head slowly to the left, where he could see the electrical signals of his heart. He glanced down, seeing bandages wrapped tightly around his torso; his hand lay limply on top of it with a heart monitor attached to his index finger. He closed his eyes briefly before looking to the right.

Peter. Doing his homework. Right by his bedside. (He was admittedly touched.)

"Hey," he rasped out, gaining the teenager's attention.

"Oh! You're awake!" he exclaimed, before his eyes widened and he quieted down a bit. "Do you feel okay?"

"I'm fine." He winced. "Okay, maybe not. Some water would be greatly appreciated."

"Yeah, I figured. Here." He handed him a cup of water as Loki sat up a little. He sipped at it gratefully.

"Peter?" he asked. He was unusually quiet.

Peter sighed, putting his textbook aside and fidgeting with his webshooters. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

Loki set down the water. "What for?"

"I was with you when you got shot. You could've died! I-" He cut himself off with a jerk of his head.

Loki didn't entirely know how to deal with this. "I'm fine, Peter. I'm alive."

"But-"

"No buts. And I suppose it's better me than you. I think I'd have a higher chance of surviving, don't you think?" He tilted his head, prompting Peter to speak.

"I know. It's...it's kinda ridiculous, actually." He ran a hand through his hair.

"What?"

"Y'know my Uncle Ben, right?" Loki nodded, then froze. Oh. _Oh_. "Yeah, well. This kinda...reminded me of...that? And I didn't exactly take it well the last time, so if you'd gotten shot and died in front of me, I don't think - I don't know - I don't know what I would've done." He laughed mirthlessly, a sound Loki found didn't fit with the carefree and enthusiastic boy he usually was.

"I'm alive," Loki said softly. "You can hear my heartbeat, right?"

Peter paused. "Yeah."

"Know that there's nothing you could've done differently, nothing at all that would have prevented this or would have prevented your uncle from dying. The blame does not lie on your shoulders."

He nodded. "Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Loki."

He smiled. Oh, this sentiment would be the death of him. "Now what are you working on?"

"Oh, this?" Peter asked, raising his eyebrows. "Okay, so we're learning about the amendments, right?"

"Amendments to what?"

"The US Constitution, and each of us was assigned one to present about, and I got the most ridiculous one of all!" he exclaimed in indignation.

"Which one is that?"

"The eighteenth! Prohibition of liquor and all of that."

That gave Loki pause. "Your government passed a law to outlaw alcohol."

Peter nodded. "It didn't even stay permanent, but I can't present about that part because it's _another_ amendment!"

"Idiots."

"I know, right? Not that I want to drink or anything, 'cause I'm not old enough. I mean, not that I _don't_ want to drink just because I'm too young. I mean, I haven't drank any alcohol. Scout's honor." Loki raised his eyebrows. "Don't look at me like that! Okay, so I went to homecoming last year, kinda stood up my date (sorry Liz), but before all that her villain dad the Vulture tried to offer me a drink and I said 'no' and he was like, 'good choice'. I swear I haven't drunk anything."

Loki continued to stare at him skeptically.

"Okay...maybe a sip or two at some party last month."

"I'm surprised you're actually invited to parties."

"Hey! I have friends!" he exclaimed. "I have a social life!"

Loki smirked. "Not after Stark finds out about your underage drinking."

"It was only a sip, it was _only_ \- oh, hey Mr. Stark!" He gave his most innocent smile to the man leaned against the door frame.

Unfortunately, said man had a smirk on his face similar to Loki's. Oh, the child was _so_ doomed.


	26. If You Thought the Head Trauma Was Bad

He sat in the hospital bed; the blonde-haired man sat in the chair beside it.

The room was silent. He wasn't sure if it was uncomfortable or not, if it was _supposed_ to be uncomfortable or not.

He didn't know much of anything anymore.

"I should know you," he said, looking at his hands as they twisted together in his lap.

"Yes," the man said softly. His blonde hair just about reached his shoulders, not unlike his own dark locks. Was it some sort of popular style?

"But I don't."

"Yes." Was that the only thing he could say?

He swallowed. "I'm sorry that I don't."

"It's-" The man's voice broke, and it didn't seem like he was taking this very well. "It's fine. It's not your fault. We'll...we'll figure this out."

He extended his muscly arm to squeeze one of his hands.

It was supposed to be familiar.

It was not.

* * *

They said he fell off of a building. _Pushed off_ , they did not say.

But from the way they acted around him, like he was porcelain, like they _cared_ , he didn't think that person was still breathing.

They called him 'Loki'.

He accepted it easily enough, but it unnerved him how detached he felt about everything: his name, his clothing, his room, his _life_. (Perhaps emotions came not from the heart, but from one's memories.)

He learned names: Thor (the blond man he felt a faint pull towards), Tony (the slightly self-centered man who owned the building), Steve (the one with an abundance of kindness), Bruce (the soft-spoken man hiding a green monster underneath), Natasha (the fierce assassin with fiery red hair), Clint (the archer with a subdued animosity towards him), Wanda (the witch with red magic), Vision (the android with a personality and soul of his own), Sam (the man with wings and fun to be around), Rhodey (the most loyal friend you'd ever meet), and Pepper (the poor woman who had to deal with them all).

He wondered if he had been close to them once.

He wondered if they could get that person back.

It was weird, how his entire life (thousands of years, apparently) had just gone up in flames with one hard hit on the head.

He asked the building's artificial intelligence, once, where his parents were, if he even _had_ parents.

He learned that his mother was dead. It hurt in a distant way, because he knew her but he didn't. He wanted so much to feel the pain of her death that it _hurt_ , in and of itself.

On the other hand, his father...didn't seem to have a good relationship with him. It was in the way Thor (his brother, apparently) hesitated to bring them back to Asgard, back to what was supposed to be home. He couldn't receive the magical healing there because he wasn't welcomed there, and the curiosity hurt because he wanted to _know_ what he had done to warrant this, how bad of a person he must've been to deserve this.

He learned that they were considered princes, where they came from. He learned that Thor had given up the throne because he was a good man, not a good king (Loki secretly thought that good men made the best of kings), and that he couldn't bring Loki back there after whatever happened on Svartalfheim.

They had gone to earth instead.

And now he was here, looking at himself in the mirror and waiting for something to _click_ inside his head because he shouldn't have this many scars. He would've remembered. He _should've_ remembered. ( _Torture_ , a part of him whispered, and he became begrudgingly glad that he couldn't remember.)

The others tried, they did. But they treated him like glass, and it got tiring, so tiring. He was tired of acting okay because he wasn't. Tired of examining everyone to try and figure out how they expected him to act because he wasn't the Loki they wanted. Tired of hearing them talk about things that he should've known but didn't.

He searched himself up on the internet one time; he had locked himself in his room for the rest of the day. He hoped the myths weren't true; but the videos _were_.

He was a bad guy, a villain, it seemed. It didn't make sense. Why did they stick with him? Did they do it out of pity?

Magic was a breath of fresh air. Despite his lack of memories, it was familiar, like another limb, like a soul mate. It was as easy as breathing, as necessary as water was to the world.

It was, quite simply, magic. ("Sedir," Thor would say as he practiced, eyes pained and seeing a glimpse of the someone he used to be.)

Of course, he didn't remember any of the intricate rituals or incantations (he had the books in his room for that), but he could manipulate it with pure instinct.

It was nice. It was familiar.

It took about a month for them to let him back on their missions. (He fit in like that one puzzle piece that was supposed to fit, but didn't.) When they bantered, he stayed silent, not knowing what to say. When they fought, he fought with them, only aided by a bone-deep instinct to fight. When they laughed and talked and ate after a successful mission, he stayed to the side, watching them and wanting _so badly_ to fit in.

But they were the heroes; not him.

* * *

Weightlessness. Falling, he was falling. An unexplained terror flooded him.

Screaming. _Loki!_ That was his name.

Water. So much water. Drowning, choking on it, choking in it; eyes closing, going limp.

Darkness. Cold, so cold.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Gasps, coughs. Air, blessed _air_. Hands, hands on his chest, in his hair.

Water. Water everywhere. Clothes and skin and hair and face. Not quite water. Wet. Tears.

Blonde hair blue eyes above him. Sobbing, nearly. _You're okay, you're okay. Just breathe, little brother. You're okay._

Like a mantra, lulling him to sleep.

* * *

They said it had been a mission gone wrong.

They said he drowned.

He didn't really remember (which was plausible, since he had barely been conscious).

What they didn't say: he had been deprived of oxygen for seven minutes, he had been _gone_ , Thor had cried over him, it had been bad.

For once, he thought that he didn't mind this not-remembering.

It felt like a door had opened from the other side.

* * *

It was funny that it had been another near-death experience that had brought back his memories.

Oh, not all at once, of course.

They came gradually, clumps of details and knowledge and events without any particular order.

They came so gradually that he didn't even realize it at first.

It was only as he walked towards Wanda's room (a smile on his face) on a Thursday morning that he _realized_. Thursday mornings were _their_ time. He taught her magic and they talked and talked and laughed during this time. They were Loki and Wanda during this time.

But this time hadn't been there last week (or the week before, or the week before that).

He choked a little, hand freezing from its position of almost knocking on her door. He dropped the plates of pancakes and scrambled eggs, watched numbly as they hit the floor with an almighty clatter.

He collapsed to the ground, leaning against the wall opposite her door, just trying to breathe through the tears of pure _elation_.

"Loki?" she asked hesitantly, opening the door. She rushed towards him as soon as she saw him. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head, almost breathless with this utter happiness. "Loki, tell me," she insisted, growing concerned.

"I _remember_ ," he forced out. "I'm starting to remember!"

"Oh. Oh!" She gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth. "That's amazing, Loki. That's..." She laughed and leaned her head on his shoulder, wrapping him in a hug.

They stayed like that for a long time, even after the food had long since lost their heat.

And so, he continued to remember. There were good days and bad days.

But Thor and everyone else were there to sort him through it, sort him through the memories slowly, ever so slowly trickling back into his brain. The first fall had built up a dam, and the second fall had broken it, broken the thing that was keeping him from being _him_.

This helping, this love, felt so familiar. He thought things were beginning to come into focus.

And later, so much later, when his memories had all practically returned, he'd watch everyone in the room laughing, joking, simply spending time with one another.

He'd wonder how he'd ever doubted them.

And then he'd join in and laugh.

Because the puzzle piece finally fit.


	27. Natural Disasters on Their 2020 Card?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I choose the mostly unrealistic effects of an earthquake (unless you're watching San Andreas)? I dunno; I have no clue. This was the prompt I had most difficulty with because I had no idea what I was doing.

Loki was pretty sure he had a serious case of bad luck.

Considering the amount of times he seemed to get hurt when everyone else came out unscathed...

The God of Bad Luck was probably just as viable a title for him.

The point was that the earthquake couldn't have _possibly_ been his fault.

At the moment, the Avengers were _not_ fighting any criminal mastermind. No, they were evacuating people in the hardest hit places of California.

The ground shook every so often, and buildings collapsed under the strain. Loki was almost convinced that someone had magically created this earthquake because there was no way something as intense as this could exist just as a freak of nature.

"How the heck did this earthquake happen?" Sam asked, annoyed. "I swear it's never been this bad before, at least in my lifetime."

"Ever heard of tectonic plates? Well-"

"Don't be a fucking smartass, Stark."

"Language." Then a sigh. "Oh, no one's forgetting that anytime soon." A few snickers. "Just focus on getting everyone out, guys."

"I'm not entirely sure why I brought my bow," Clint said through the comms.

"So you can shoot the ground every time it shakes?" Loki suggested, dodging a falling brick and using his magic to keep the building up until everyone got out.

"Sounds like a great idea," he muttered back. "I'll tell you how it goes."

Loki saw Thor flying in the distance and rolled his eyes. The dramatic oaf.

"All the people are out of my section," Natasha said. "Are you guys almost done?"

Vision grunted. "I am not done yet. There are people still trapped here."

"Okay, I'm coming to you."

Loki looked up as a crumbling noise reached his ears, throwing up a green shield around him and the surrounding people. He grit his teeth as the weight hit his magic. Ignoring the civilians' screams, he pushed up and out, shoving the debris off of the shield and allowing them to move out of the area.

"Come on!" he called out. "Over here!" He led them away, tuning back into the conversation over the comms.

"Isn't there this one Norse myth where Loki caused a bunch of earthquakes on Asgard?" Tony asked.

Loki was not aware of this. "I assure you, I haven't caused any earthquakes, on Asgard or here."

"Yeah, well. It was kinda creepy and all."

"Which is why I wouldn't go around reading Norse myths," Rhodey said. "Seriously, Tones?"

"As I was saying." A repulsor blast (Loki absentmindedly wondered what he was blasting). "Basically, Loki committed some crime or something. I don't really remember. But he's chained in the caves below Asgard and has to suffer snake venom dripping onto his skin for the rest of eternity."

Loki choked. "I - what?"

"Yeah, and it hurts. So you pull on the chains and accidentally cause a bunch of earthquakes. The end."

"That is...particularly brutal," Thor muttered from wherever he was.

Loki swallowed. "You mortals and your dark imaginations."

"It's not as if you're _im_ mortal," Vision pointed out.

"Well, yes, I suppose so." He grimaced, pulling a person up from the ground and leading him to safety.

But then the ground started shaking again, and the last thing he remembered was teleporting the person away before the darkness hit.

* * *

He groaned, trying to lift his head up from the ground. Everything _ached_.

He looked around, noticing all the debris surrounding him. A collapsing building. _Of course_ it'd been a collapsing building. He hated collapsing buildings.

He sat up, a sharp pain shooting through the hand he was using to steady himself. He gasped, bringing his hand back to see a deep slash on his palm. He looked back up to see a sharp edge dripping with his blood. _Wonderful._

Something...something was crushing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. He looked down. And blinked. Perhaps _in_ it would be more accurate, if the steel bar an inch in diameter impaled in his chest was any indication.

Some static, and then, "-oki? Loki?!" _Barnes_ , his mind told him.

"Yes?" he responded. It sounded distant, even to his ears.

"Oh, thank God. You haven't answered for the last few minutes. We saw a building collapse on you."

"Well, heard it, anyways," Natasha interjected.

"Yeah. You good?"

"I - um." He frowned, coughing a little. It came out red.

"Loki?" his brother prompted.

"I think you better get me," he said, closing his eyes as he thrust his healing magic into the wound and just tried to breathe. He was pretty sure a human would be dead by now.

"What's wrong?" Thor asked. He could hear the whipping of wind through the comms.

Loki laughed. Perhaps he was delirious. "Oh, nothing. Just a building collapsing on me. Nothing to worry about."

"Gee, you hear that, guys? Everything's fine," Tony said, but it veiled a layer of concern.

"Are you injured?" Steve. He seemed to be running towards him.

"My hand," he said slowly, fidgeting a little with the wound in his chest.

"I feel like there's an 'and' to that," Natasha muttered.

"Well, there's also..." How could he say this?

"Also what, Brother?" Oh, the overprotective oaf was definitely going to flip out and start beating up the building that hurt him.

He swallowed, lifting his eyes up to see the top of the little space he was trapped in. "There's about two feet of steel in my chest."

A pause. "What?"

"Did you not hear-"

"I know, I did. Just, how's your sedir?" Thor asked quickly. Loki could just _hear_ the concern and panic in his voice.

"It's helping, but it won't be a permanent fix," he said softly, faintly. "Loathe to admit it, I think I need to go to the med bay."

Sam snorted. "We were already gonna make you go there."

"Oh, well. One resolved issue, I guess." He breathed. It ought to have hurt, but it didn't. He just felt numb, which was a problem, but he couldn't remember why that was.

Silence. He closed his eyes.

His breaths echoed slowly through the tiny space.

His blood trickled from his wounds and stained his skin red.

 _Loki!_ they called. _Stay awake!_

But he was just so damn tired.

He vaguely registered strands of red magic lifting the debris around him, letting light in, and soft hands on him, lifting him, before the stream of unconsciousness overtook him completely.

* * *

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

His eyes fluttered open. He lifted his hand, found it swathed in bandages. He touched his face and found a thin tube there, under his nose.

It was quiet. He couldn't quite push past the mush in his brain, and the light was far too bright, but it seemed peaceful.

He breathed, in and out, begrudgingly grateful for the tube supplying him with pure oxygen.

He gripped the bandages protecting his chest, winced as the movement sent pain rippling through his body.

Then he smiled, a rather dopey one at that. Pain was good. Pain meant he was alive.

His eyes fluttered closed again.


	28. Such Wow Many Normal Very Oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a pretty short one. Oh well.
> 
> To the person who came up with the prompt: Are you okay?

Loki was innocently walking on the sidewalks of New York.

Okay, perhaps not _innocently_. Nothing pertaining to the God of Mischief could really be called 'innocent'.

But back to the point. He had been walking in the streets of New York, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the people hurry about on their last-minute Christmas shopping. He smirked (idiot procrastinators) and proceeded to try not to roll his eyes at all the Christmas carols playing from the storefronts and the fake Santa Clauses ringing bells and begging for money.

And do you know what happened then?

He was pulled into an alley, shoved against a wall, and punched in the face! It hadn't really been that hard, either; it had just glanced off of his face. The pathetic excuse for a man proceeded to shove a gun in his face and scream, "Give me all your money!"

It was extremely cliché.

He couldn't do anything other than blink. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you heard what I said," the man said in an attempt to make his voice gruffer than it usually was.

Loki was starting to doubt if the gun was even loaded. "Well, yes. Of course I heard what you said. I'm not deaf."

The man didn't seem to know what to make of this, so he stepped back on old failsafes. "Give me all your money!"

"Well, since you asked nicely..." He snapped his fingers, and the gun disappeared in a poof of green smoke. A bit more flashy than necessary, but he was bored, so...

"What?" the man gasped faintly, looking at his now empty hand like he had just lost a lover.

"It's rather unfortunate, really," Loki continued. "You would've had much better luck picking _literally anyone else_ in the city. But you just _had_ to pick me." He scoffed. "I don't even _have_ any money on me at the moment! Human currency, at least. I doubt Asgard's coins will help you much in your endeavors."

The man was still gaping at him. Loki was mildly worried he'd get a stroke.

"Please stop staring at me like that. It's very unbecoming."

The man's mouth snapped shut with an audible _clack_.

Loki sighed. "I suppose I can't let you go and rob other people now, can I?"

"No, no. You can do that. I won't try to mug anyone ever again." The man laughed nervously and started backing away.

Well, Loki couldn't let _that_ stand.

"Oh no you don't." With a curl of his fingers and a strand of his magic, the man was pulled back by the collar of his shirt.

The man had offended him, that was all. He wasn't doing this for the greater good or anything like that.

He audibly gulped as Loki let his magic gather to his fingertips in green orbs, a dangerous smirk lighting up his face.

* * *

"So what'd you do to him?" Thor asked later, eyebrows raised and lounging on the couch. The others were also there, not exactly sure if they were supposed to believe the story or not.

"Oh, nothing. Just a bit of public humiliation."

His eyes seemed to grow greener under their scrutiny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha. The poor guy. This reminds me of The Flash, where that one guy tries to rob Barry. Twice. He really has bad luck.


	29. I Think I Need a Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's headcanon for me that Heimdall and Eir are like those aunts and uncles who became Thor and Loki's pseudo-parents when Frigga and Odin...died. I have no idea where this came from, considering we never get to see them much in the movies, let alone see them interact; but it's a nice headcanon, I think.

Eir remembered a time, centuries ago, when she was still an apprentice healer. The Allfather had brought in a Jotun babe, so frail and so tiny.

She remembered feeling shocked that he would choose her over all the other healers there to tend to the babe, to see if it was all right. (She still wondered what qualities had deemed her trustworthy in the Allfather's eyes.) It was funny, how clueless he had been regarding the Jotnar race.

And so, it was her that had kept the secret all those years. Kept it when the Allfather had presented the babe as his son, Asgardian glamour in place. Kept it as Loki grew to be a fine prince (though never fine in some others' eyes). Kept it as he went to her time and time again, with injuries from battles or training or accidents or more. Kept it as she wiped away his tears and made the hurt all better. Kept it as he grew into adulthood and became more isolated from the others. Kept it as he practiced sedir, a light in his eyes nothing else would give him. Kept it as the eldest prince's coronation came near.

Kept it as he fell (though it had no longer been a secret by then).

But then he had come back, albeit twisted and unfamiliar. She wondered where the child she had tended to for all those years had gone.

She wondered if they could get him back.

So it was guilt that had led her that one time to his room. His _cell_ , though it saddened her to think of it that way. Guilt _and_ a sense of duty that had brought her there, actually (she liked to lean on the first, though).

Loki had somehow gotten hurt (she wisely chose not to ask how, though the footprint on his chest told the whole story), and the Allmother had not ordered, but requested that she come down despite the Allfather's wishes.

They had talked, the two of them.

Well, it was more like she had talked and he had sulked while she tended to his injuries, but he hadn't been angry with her, which she supposed was a plus.

It was then that she saw the scars.

They gave her pause. She had tended to him since he was a babe, and knew his scars as well as he did.

But those were new.

She thought she finally knew where the old Loki had gone. (It hadn't been the Void, it had been someone _in_ the Void.)

But she stayed silent, as she always did. (Perhaps that was a fault of hers that the king had exploited, all those years ago.)

Those scars, however gruesome they were, gave her hope.

But after the Allmother's death, the hope had been lost. She hadn't thought they could get him back anymore.

Her doubt was unwarranted, however, as the eldest prince (now king) brought him back. They fought _together_. They saved Asgard _together_.

The bond of brothers had been stronger than she'd thought.

Now, they were doing it again, here in New Asgard, albeit on opposite sides of the small village, fighting a battle that should've already been over.

Apparently, when Heimdall had said that Asgard was not a place, but a people, it applied to Hela's powers, too. If the gatekeeper were still here, she would've...

She sighed, forcing her face out of its murderous glare (it was scaring the little ones). This was no time to question their unfortunate luck; they had to get to safety.

She and the other healers ushered the women and children and elders out of the city and into the nearby forest, where they'd hopefully be safe.

Everyone else (not that there were many) was fighting Hela and her un-dead army. She was weakened from the destruction of her previous body and the subsequent regeneration, but you couldn't kill the Goddess of Death. You _could_ , however, separate her core from her source of strength using a magical ritual that Eir didn't know the details to.

The prince _did_ , though. So that was what mattered.

A shockwave spread through the land from his position, so she assumed he had done it.

The only problem: Hela was still alive. Even without her fast regeneration and healing, she was still a formidable swordswoman and still had her power over the dead.

The now-king was busy electrocuting all the enemy soldiers in his vicinity, the Valkyrie in the fray right beside him.

They didn't hear the familiar cry of pain.

Eir did.

She set down the child she had been carrying and ran, ignoring the cries of her fellow healers. She ran, because she had to admit she was quite fond of the Odinsons, and not so fond of the Odinsdottir. She ran, because there was still a part of her that remembered the wide-eyed babe that had been brought to her all those years ago.

She found them in the clearing that used to be the schoolhouse.

Apparently, the prince had been an idiot and tried to fight Hela. Alone.

He was now trapped in a chokehold, a long dagger in his side. Blood dripped from the wound, and his breathing was too quick to be healthy. From the angle of the blade and the paleness of his face (more than usual, at least), internal damage was not only likely, but a certainty. (The wound was also strikingly similar to the one that had killed the Allmother all those years ago, not that the Prince knew that.)

"Hela!" she called out, stepping into view and sounding far braver than she felt. She was a healer, not a fighter.

The woman turned her attention from taunting her (adopted) little brother to Eir, standing without a weapon 10 feet in front of her. Hela looked her up and down. "Who are _you_?"

Loki stiffened, having just realized she was there. That was bad. "Eir. No - don't-" He was cut off by another dagger pressed to his throat, drawing several beads of blood.

Eir pushed down her protective rage. "Let him go," she demanded, voice firm.

Hela laughed, but Eir only really had eyes for the prince, whose eyes were closed in either pain or exhaustion. "You don't seem like much of a threat," she mocked.

"I don't need to be." She had to get her and the blade away from him. But how?

"Oh, such confidence in yourself, like little brother here before I beat him." She used the hand not holding the blade to twist the dagger in his side for good measure. A breathless gasp of pain came from Loki, but it soon turned into shaky laughter.

Eir was almost as confused as Hela. "What? What's so funny?" she asked. She shook him a little when he wouldn't answer. "Tell me!"

He shook his head. The laughter had a bitter tinge to it. "You are no sister of mine."

"Yes, well. Sorry to disappoint, but we are bound by Odin's blood."

Oh. Eir could see where this was going. "No we aren't." His laughter cut off abruptly, and his eyes turned red. "I'm not even Aesir."

Hela was too slow to avoid the blue that had spread over his skin. She cursed (in pain or surprise, Eir didn't know) and pushed her hostage away from her and to the ground.

Eir gathered her magic. "You - you're Jotnar! Ho-" She disappeared in a flash of gold light, teleported away by Eir's own magic.

She sighed. The goddess was gone.

A moan cut through the relative silence, and she rushed to the prince, Asgardian glamour already back in place. "Eir?" he asked, voice pained.

"I'm here, my prince." She kneeled by him, examining his pulse and the wound in his side. She grimaced. It was deep, and they didn't have any medical supplies out here.

"What...what'd you do?" he asked, eyes opening briefly.

"As soon as you were safe...somewhat, I teleported her away." She pressed a hand to the wound and pushed threads of her healing magic in, watching as it twined with the green of the prince's.

He raised his eyebrows, though his eyes had closed. "I can do magic other than healing magic," she chided him, though it was only half-hearted.

He smiled a little. "I know. Where did you take her?" Eir frowned as a bit of blood trickled out the side of his mouth.

"Hopefully in the path of the king's new weapon."

He laughed. It sounded much more carefree than before. "That's good. That's good."

Eir started to pull out the blade because they couldn't do much healing with it still in, causing him to gasp and grab onto the cloth of her dress to ground himself. When it was finally out, she threw it aside like trash and conjured up a bandage, wrapping his wound tightly and temporarily stabilizing him before he could get real medical attention.

"Eir?" he asked, voice small and seeking to gain her full attention. It was something he hadn't done since he was a child.

"Yes?" she asked, stroking his hair a little as the sounds of battle in the distance started to die down.

"Why? Why try and save me?"

She sighed. _Idiot prince._ "It is my duty to the throne, is it not?"

He frowned. "Yes, but...you're a healer. You should've been with the others."

"Yet you were in trouble. I couldn't leave you."

He was still frowning. Eir could see that he didn't understand. "I didn't think anyone in Asgard, other than Thor, that is, cared about my wellbeing."

"Oh, perhaps not before. But the people have now seen you fight for them, protect them, at the expense of your health. They will rethink such sentiments."

She could hear his breathing start to slow just a little, could see him start to succumb to unconsciousness. She checked to see that her magic was still feeding into his wound, and grasped his hand in hers as the sound of Thor's (the king, but always a little prince in her eyes) footsteps grew louder. "Even with the...blue?" he murmured.

She chuckled. "Even with the blue, my prince."


	30. Now Where Did That Come From?

They were in a dark building with dark hallways that connected in a maze-like manner; dust and cobwebs were _everywhere_.

It was kind of creepy, for lack of a better word.

Loki was currently with Steve, creeping through the creepy building to (hopefully) find any information on Hydra. The building looked abandoned, though, so he doubted they'd find anything.

Then there was the tell-tale sound of a _click_ , ominously echoing through the passageway.

"Steve?" he asked. The man had completely stilled.

"Uh...I think this place is booby-trapped," he said slowly, looking down at where his foot had hit a trip-wire.

 _Of course_ , he thought. Of course the creepy place had traps set. Why the hell not?

He grimaced, shoving a cobweb out of his hair in distaste and walking over to Steve. He looked around, looking for the danger. "If you move, five daggers will impale your left side," he noted.

"Okay, okay." The captain moved his shield so it was protecting his left side (just in case) before leaping forwards and out of the way.

With a _thud_ , the daggers were embedded in the opposite wall.

Steve breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders drooping as he let his guard down.

Too soon. It was too soon.

Loki's sedir gave a flair of alarm, and he did the idiotic thing and bodily shoved Steve's bulky form out of the way.

And then he was met with pain. So much _pain_.

He cried out. There bad been a second trap. Of course there'd been one.

He felt his magic wrap around him, gentle as silk, soothing the places the chemicals had damaged. He vaguely heard someone screaming, and belatedly realized it was him.

He clamped his mouth shut and tried not to put Steve in any more of a panic than he already was.

"Guys?" His voice was slightly higher than usual, and Loki probably would've laughed if everything didn't hurt so damn much. "The place is booby-trapped. Loki got a bunch of acid poured on him."

Acid? He opened his eyes briefly (When had he closed them?) to find, through a layer of tears, the skin of his hands red and inflamed. He didn't think it was acid; it wasn't exactly eating into his skin.

But it still hurt, so he supposed it didn't make much of a difference.

"Oh. Oh, gods. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. What can I do?" Steve asked. It sounded distant, like he was at the other end of a tunnel. "Loki?" He vaguely registered the man hovering beside him, hesitating to touch him or come near the pool of liquid that had doused him.

"Steve," he gasped out, breathing raggedly and blinking back the tears of pain.

"Hey. You think you can move back? You're still in a puddle of that stuff." He sounded calm. He didn't _look_ calm, but he sounded calm. Okay. Loki could work with that.

He closed his eyes, stood up with a hand against the wall, and moved back to where he hoped was safe. "There. That's good. You're fine."

Yes, well. It certainly didn't feel that way. He heard Thor's concerned voice through the comms, and realized that, for once, he didn't have to try and tune him out.

"Hey, you with me?" Steve asked.

Loki was biting the inside of his cheek in an attempt to keep his screams of pain inside, so yes, he was with him, but he didn't exactly want to be. He chose to nod instead.

"Okay. You gotta stay awake until the others come. Can you do that?"

Norns, everything _hurt_. It burned, and it felt like he had just been lit on fire. His magic was trying, it _was_ , but even he knew that the damage was extensive.

"-oki. Loki, answer me."

He let out a moan of pain in reply.

"Okay. That works, I guess."

He didn't entirely know what had happened next since he'd blacked out, but at what seemed like the next moment, he opened his eyes to the sight of the med bay back at the tower.

He sat up abruptly, wondering what was happening, looking for answers. His breathing picked up, but it didn't sound as pained as before. Actually...

He looked down. Bandages were wrapped around nearly every part of his body. But they were soft, and the pain was very distant.

He frowned. He must've been on some very strong drugs.

The door opened. A sigh of relief. "Hey," Steve greeted, moving to sit in the chair by his bedside.

"Hey," he mumbled back, still looking at the white bandages that probably covered a horrendous sight.

"You've been asleep for a few days." Was that supposed to make him feel better? "Bruce said it wasn't acid, thankfully, but you do have third-degree chemical burns."

Loki raised his head to look at him. He seemed tired. Steve ignored his scrutiny. "Your magic's done most of the work, though. Your scars will be minimal." Loki nodded; it was as expected.

Silence.

"Steve?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

Loki started slowly. "You know that I do not blame you for my injuries, right?"

Steve sighed, looking at his hands. "I know. It's just...you did it for _me_ , y'know. You got hurt because of _me_. Even if you don't blame me, there's still the...lingering guilt from all of that."

Loki nodded. "Well, if it makes you feel better...I forgive you for accidentally putting yourself in harm's way and leaving me to save you."

Steve made a face. "When you put it like that..."

"I know. That's why I said it."

He laughed a little, but soon sobered up.

"It's okay." Loki reached out to awkwardly pat his arm. "I'll be all healed up soon."

Something lit up inside Steve's head. "Oh, yeah. That reminds me. Thor has a lecture planned out for you on your recklessness and self-sacrificing."

Loki blinked. "He _what_?"

"Yeah...he's kinda tired of you getting hurt. _Everyone_ is, actually."

Loki scoffed, ignoring the unbidden warmth that had bloomed in his chest. "I hardly think it'll be a whole lecture. Only 30 words, at the _most_."

Steve laughed. "You'll see."

Loki tried not to gape in horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've come to the realization that I've been slightly overusing the character-falls-unconscious-and-wakes-up-in-the-hospital plot point. Whoops. My bad. I guess that's what happens with the whole whump thing.


	31. Today’s Special: Torture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doesn't actually include torture (I don't think I could really write it), but the bromancey reunion afterwards, 'cause I love Thor and Loki's brotherly relationship. (Okay, who thought of Thorki? I just wanna have a talk.)
> 
> I'm going to miss those two (*ahem* as brothers) if Thor doesn't somehow appear in the Loki series and if Loki doesn't somehow appear in Thor 4. Like, think about it! With Loki dead, Thor has to go through at least 1000 more years of life (not that I know the exact number) without his brother. My brain chooses not to comprehend that to save my heart from breaking at its seams.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for actually sticking with me through this whole fic! It's been fun writing and finding my voice for another character.
> 
> Happy Halloween!
> 
> -himynameisv

Thor ran through Thanos's ship, going around corners and through corridor after corridor. His ship was like a whole damn palace. Well, except for the darkness. Everything was so dark; it gave him chills.

He could hear fighting echoing faintly in the distance, between Thanos and his lackeys and the full might of Asgard, from Lady Sif and the Warriors Three to his mother and father. (The people thought they were fighting the Mad Titan to save half of all life; Thor was fighting for something more pressing.) And although he was normally not one to run away from a fight, the suffocating feeling in his chest reminded him that this was different.

Loki was here.

His footsteps echoed through the empty space, his breaths sounding abnormally loud in the quiet.

Loki was here, and he had to find him.

He was led only by a faint pull he registered vaguely as Loki's magic. It was familiar. It was alive.

But Loki was still here, and Thor dreaded what he would find.

He opened yet another door and froze. A figure was curled up on the ground at the far end of the room. The smell of blood permeated the air.

He realized belatedly that the figure had long black hair, and his tattered clothes showed hints of green.

"Loki?" he breathed out. His voice sounded weak, even to his ears. "Loki." He hurried to his brother and kneeled beside him, ignoring the concerning puddle of blood beneath them.

He turned his brother's lifeless body so he was lying on his back. His eyes were closed, but a hand on his chest told Thor that he was still breathing. He sighed, and tried not to think about how many broken bones and cuts and bruises and burns there were.

Loki was so battered, so broken. Thor was just so tired of losing him.

He used his cape to bind the worst of the wounds and tried to keep his touch soft despite the burning rage coming from within him. Oh, he was going to _kill_ Thanos.

But then Loki's breath hitched and his eyelids fluttered, and every notion of murder dissipated into the air.

"Thor?" Loki asked, voice small and rough from either disuse or screams of pain (Thor tried not to think about it).

"I'm here," he said softly. He cradled Loki's body in his arms. "I'm here."

A lone tear fell from his brother's eyes. Thor watched it flow down his cheek and drip off his chin, joining the puddle of red below. Loki laughed. It sounded painful, but it was full of - of _happiness_. "You came!" he whispered, burying his face in the crook of Thor's neck.

Thor swallowed through the tightness in his throat. Before, he wasn't going to come; before, he had thought Loki a traitor to Asgard again. "You're okay," he murmured. "I'm here, you're okay now. No one will hurt you ever again; I won't let them."

"You can't promise that," Loki said softly, fiddling with the front of Thor's shirt with broken fingers.

Thor sighed, brushing away some of his hair from his face. "I can try. For you, I'll always try."

Loki's brows furrowed, as if he didn't understand. Perhaps he truly didn't. "Why?"

It was one word, one simple word, and it tore Thor's heart apart all over again. He pressed a kiss to the top of Loki's head and hoped he understood. _Because you're my brother. Because I love you._

Loki sniffed. "Everything hurts." Norns, he sounded like such a child. It reminded Thor of a time years ago, of a little toddler Loki, barely able to walk yet still determined to follow Thor wherever he went.

"I know," he whispered, rocking them back and forth. "I'm sorry."

He continued to murmur soothing nothings into his brother's ear, long after he had fallen into unconsciousness. (It was almost funny, how Thor felt just as broken as Loki.)

And then he gently stood up, lifting his brother along with him, mindful of the way his head lulled on his shoulder.

"You'll be okay," he whispered. "I'll make sure of it."

And then he ran, ran out of this hellhole, out of the darkness of the titan's ship and the memories that came with it. He ran because his little brother was hurt and lying in his arms. He ran to their mother and father, ran to the rest of Asgard, ran to safety, to the light in the overwhelming darkness.

They were going home.


End file.
